


No Man's Land

by QuizzicalQuinnia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Inspired by Outlander, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:52:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 71,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuizzicalQuinnia/pseuds/QuizzicalQuinnia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime Lannister has returned from the great eastern war without a hand and with a new intent to learn about his ancestor and namesake, Ser Jaime Lannister, who lived hundreds of years before. An isolated hike in the ruins of old Winterfell quickly turns into a life-altering event when Jaime is sent back in time to step into his ancestor's shoes. Jaime soon faces a battle for identity in a place more foreign than any eastern port, with only a stubborn wench to guide him. Fortunately, he seems to like her quite a lot despite the possibility of his growing attachment causing both their deaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is "inspired" by Outlander, The Prisoner of Zenda, and various other tales all mushed up in my head (and no, you don't need to be familiar with any of them!). 
> 
> All chapters beta'd by the indomitable Mikki!

 

Banner by the amazing [Ro Nordman](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com/post/94708755539/no-mans-land-by-quizzicalquinnia-its-whatever)

* * *

 

The car rumbled around them as he struggled to avoid the dozens of potholes pitting the narrow road. Jaime Lannister was not one to let potholes defeat him, though it felt as if the tires would soon give up and collapse. Driving one-handed was not the best situation for this road, and he tightened his lips with frustration. At least he could drive at all, he told himself. He still had one hand.

He glanced over at his sister, expecting Cersei to have removed the scarf binding her hair, expecting to see those golden locks flying in the wind as she smiled up into the sun like she used to. It was only a quick glance, but enough to see that she remained stiffly in her seat with the scarf in place and big sunglasses covering her eyes. No chaos, no joy. She had changed so much during the war.

The car bucked when he failed to veer from a hole, and they were thrown back in their seats. Jaime slowed and finally stopped altogether to reevaluate their route.

“Let’s return to town, Jaime. Please? This is terrible.” Cersei’s sweet, lilting voice wasn’t so sweet just then.

“We’re so close now, we could even walk.” Jaime shrugged and tried to bury the dismay he’d felt even since he and Cersei had come north.

The war had taken its toll on every citizen of Westeros. He had to remember that Cersei was no exception. While he’d been away in the east, fighting and spying and losing a hand, she’d gone to the old family seat in Lannisport to wait it out, to harbor the wounded in the drafty old manor as dictated by law, and to wait for telegrams to tell her of the dead. He hadn’t known how many until he’d come home, hadn’t known that eight Lannister men and one woman had been killed, and that every day Cersei waited for news of his own demise. She’d long before heard of her second husband’s death.

Still, she was different in ways he hadn’t known to expect. She was cold when he thought she’d be warm, petty when he thought she’d be glad simply to be alive. Her grief must have been terrible during his absence, to make her so withdrawn.

“I will walk nowhere,” she stated with no room for argument.

Jaime leaned his head back against the car seat. “Maybe this _was_ a bad idea.”

“You’re just realizing this? Nothing at the ruins could be important enough to weather this road.”

He rolled his head to look at her. She slipped the glasses off so she could glare with her piercing green eyes, mirror images of his as was every other thing about her that wasn’t female. People had always thought it peculiar how close they were, even as children, but they always attributed it to being twins. That was certainly important, but it was far more than that. They were simply the same, and being the same, no other could possibly comprehend them or complete them as they did each other. Birth sealed that, and Jaime had always believed it would remain so for the duration of their lives.

Now, it wasn’t his mirror peering back at him. It was a disgruntled stranger who had no desire to spend time with him in this way, though it was what he needed most. Solitude, peace, comfort. A project to distract him from the lives he’d taken and the lives taken from him, and the loss of his hand which often seemed to be the worst of all. He felt guilt over that, because so many of his fellows had lost eyes or parts of their faces. Both legs, or both arms. Parts of their spines so they’d never walk. His loss was just a hand, but he didn’t feel lucky to have escaped without it.

“All right, Cersei. We’ll turn back.” He nodded at her and started the car.

She simply slipped her glasses back on and looked forward.

It was challenging to maneuver the vehicle around, and it took him so long that Cersei huffed with impatience. He had to stop himself from snapping at her and her inability to drive. If she’d driven, his left arm wouldn’t be throbbing, his shoulder wouldn’t be straining to accomplish the strength of two working arms. But she couldn’t drive and hadn’t learned while he was away.

Once he’d gotten over that same field of potholes, the going was easy back to Winterfell. It was midafternoon, and the small population was out shopping and taking tea, those who weren’t busy working the fields nearby or tending the animals. There wasn’t much industry in the region apart from leather and barley for brewing.

Cersei breathed a sigh of relief as he parked in the small area behind the inn where they stayed. She unfolded herself from the car and finally removed that gaudy scarf and shook out her hair. It looked so soft, but she’d stop him if he ran his fingers through it.

“I’ll have some lunch sent up to the room. It’s so cramped in the downstairs,” she said too loudly.

Jaime retrieved the bag he’d planned to carry around the ruins and moved to follow her inside, but a shout halted him.

“Mr. Lannister? I’ve got news.” The thickly-accented voice was attached Mr. Brandon, the local historian with whom Jaime had spoken the day before.

Jaime’s disappointment about the failed field trip was stifled in favor a potential excitement. “About my namesake? You found something?”

Brandon halted in front of Jaime and flashed a wide smile, holding out an old book. “I did indeed. The original Jaime Lannister was certainly here, possibly more than once, but certainly before the War of the Five Kings began. See this?” Brandon opened the book and pointed to a page. “The household records of the Starks of Winterfell list a visit from King Robert Baratheon, accompanied by his wife and children, and his wife’s two brothers among many others in his retinue. The visit lasted weeks and cost the family an absurd sum, but the point is that though he isn’t mentioned by name, Jaime Lannister was present in this very town. Or the original Winterfell in any case.”

Jaime matched Brandon’s smile. A trail to follow at last! Much to Cersei’s dismay, he’d taken up Lannister genealogy when he’d returned. It had begun as a psychological interest, an attempt to understand himself and what had happened to him by understanding his ancestors. He didn’t know why he needed to pursue it, but he felt a connection to the old family, and particularly to the first Lannister twins after whom he and Cersei were named. Perhaps if he could trace where they had gone and what had become of them, he could connect with his own Cersei again. Things could be as they were before.

Brandon’s information was the first real lead he’d found outside of the known mentions. The first twins were born in Casterly Rock, the old ruined family seat. Cersei had been married to the king and bore him three children. Jaime had fought in many battles, and there were no records of a marriage. Not surprising since he’d been a member of the celibate order of the Kingsguard. Once the Targaryen queen reclaimed the throne, the Lannister family was banished back to the Rock and the records were few and superficial. Of course, he knew his family had survived, but there was nothing concrete until several generations after the banishment when they began to wield some power again. Any issue would likely have come from the twins' dwarf brother Tyrion, or another close relative.

He was intent on filling in the holes, despite Cersei claiming it to be a useless endeavor. He needed it, and that should have been enough.

“Thank you, Brandon. This is wonderful news,” he said, not stifling his enthusiasm since Cersei wasn’t there to see it.

“It’s a pleasure to look. Makes the ol’ brain work harder, eh? Oh yes, did you make it to the ruins this morning?” Brandon seemed to want a good tale, and Jaime wished he had one.

“Unfortunately not. The road was quite bad, and my sister…we needed to be better prepared.”

Brandon’s smile fell enough to give away his understanding. “Ah yes, women. Not used to roughing it like we do I suppose. I’ll let you get inside where I’m sure some nice hot soup awaits, and I’ll rush right over if I find anything else.”

“Thank you again. I’m trying for the ruins tomorrow.”

They waved at one another, and Jaime finally stepped into the small but nicely-appointed inn. He still wasn’t used to such comfort and the idea of consistent meals every day, and he supposed it would be a long while before that happened. The smell of fresh bread filled his nostrils, but he didn’t stop in the dining room to eat some. Cersei was waiting upstairs.

They had connecting rooms on the top floor. Jaime hadn’t cared about appearances and wanted just one room, but Cersei insisted. People talked, she’d said. They could never pass as anything but siblings because of the extreme resemblance, so two rooms were necessary. He didn’t even have to pretend to occupy one of them since Cersei had maintained her pre-war habit of wanting her own bed after she’d screwed him into exhaustion.

She was waiting for him in his room, sitting on the single chair behind a table spread with bowls of simple soup and hard rolls and butter.

“It’s not much, but it’s all they make for midday.” She delicately spread a razor-thin layer of butter on half a roll.

“They were quite fast in bringing it.”

“Yes, well, they’d better be.” She took a single bite and set the roll aside.

Jaime looked down as he pulled a low stool over to sit upon, feeling ridiculous as his knees bunched up and the table became too high to reach his soup. He picked up a roll and bit into it dry. “You eat butter now?”

She wasn’t looking at him, absentmindedly stirring her soup with one hand. “A little. The taste is novel after so many years of rationing, but I’ll set it aside soon enough.”

His eyes scanned her face as they so often did since his return, but this time, it was in appraisal rather than appreciation. She’d hardly changed despite the years, barely a new crease next to her eyes, her complexion as smooth and bright as ever. It was her eyes themselves, he decided. They weren’t dull at all, just…distant.

He set his roll back on the table. “You don’t want to be here.” He waited for her to meet his gaze, but she did only for a second.

“Of course not.”

“Then why did you come?” He hadn’t thought to ask this, just assumed that her agreement to the getaway meant she wanted to.

“Because you said you weren’t ready to come home yet.” Her answer was immediate, but there was something left unsaid.

“And?”

“And I wanted my brother back in my arms.” Her green eyes blazed then, and not just with heat. There was anger there as well.

Jaime couldn’t explain to himself why her words caused a chill to run down his spine. She was what he had kept himself alive for. Memories of her fed him when he was starving, energized him when he was exhausted from running, soothed him when he was certain he would be killed. They weren’t enough to take his pain when a field medic had amputated what was left of his right hand. He hadn’t thought of her then, but every other time he had. She was the only thing he’d ever wanted. So no, he didn’t understand the hardness of her claim or why he wanted to reject it.

“I was gone a long while.” It was the only thing he could think to say.

“Too long.” She returned her attention to the soup and brought a spoonful to her ruby lips.

Everything she said now was laced with tension. Did she mean he’d been gone so long that it was too late to regain what they had been? No, she couldn’t mean that. She still wanted him. And gods help him, despite the chill he only wanted her. If he had to give up his fanciful project and go with her back to Lannisport, then he would.

“We’ll leave in the morning,” he said as confidently as could, with as large a smile as he could muster.

Her eyes snapped to his. “Are you certain?”

He had no choice. “Yes, I’m certain.”

Her face softened, just a bit, but it was enough. She reached a hand out to touch his remaining fingers. “The day after will do, Jaime. Visit those ruins of yours and take tea with that funny little Mr. Brandon one more time. I’ll stay here and pack our things.”

A small smile crept up on his lips. “Thank you, Cersei.”

“Of course.” She took another spoonful of soup and glanced at him. “You’d better see to your hand as well. The bandage is oozing again.”

He hadn’t noticed, probably because the stump was accompanied by a perpetual throb of pain, so much he couldn't identify changes. The military doctor had said it would get better, eventually. “Yes, I will.”

Jaime held his bowl of soup like a mug of tea and drank it quickly, finishing off another two rolls between sips. Cersei rang for the dishes to be taken away. She moved wordlessly into her own room where he knew she'd sit by her fire and read magazines or perhaps re-varnish her nails. There would be a supper not much hardier than the lunch, but good to his tastes. He'd go to her after. In the meantime, he'd sleep because it was daylight and safe. But first, the stump.

He peeled his sweaty shirt off and unwound his bandages. The smell hit him as it always did, sour like vinegar, but there was no sign of infection. Just a puckered mess of flesh as red and angry as a volcano in Asshai. The oozing was good, he’d been told. A sign of healing, and the liquid was clear.

He had to use his teeth to hold the new bandage’s end as he wound it around, and it was quite a challenge. He’d buy a bottle of fine Arbor Gold the day this process was no longer necessary.

He slept through supper, and she didn't wake him. By the time he was up and had washed, Cersei’s door was open a crack and it was time to go to her.

She lounged on her bed in a fine negligee, almost transparent, and her golden curls splayed on her pillow invitingly. She held her arms open. He crawled up her body to rest over her slightly round stomach, tasting anything he could until he reached her lips and cradled her face between his hand and stump.

She turned to one side and kissed his palm. “No, I don’t want to see it, Jaime.”

He raised the stump to stay over her head. It was just a reminder of loss, he thought, and once she’d lost the tension in her body, he forgot about loss and lost himself in her. It was a short bout of passion. He spilled himself almost too quickly as had been the case since he’d found her again. He’d have to learn stamina like a boy after five years without a woman’s body beneath him. Part of him was glad since he sometimes didn’t get to finish if she came first and she wanted him to leave.

His shoulder ached painfully as he supported himself on his bad side so he could finish her with his fingers. That didn’t take long either, and minutes later, he was again curled beneath the blanket in his own room, dreading sleep and desiring it at once. There would be a constant exhaustion for many months, he had been told. Typical for soldiers come home, but there would be the dreams too. He hated the dreams.

 

* * *

 

The moon was still high in the sky when Jaime rose, no longer willing to battle the demons that haunted him in the night. It would make little difference if he left early since Cersei would remain at the inn, so he dressed in the sturdy kit he’d brought in case of a hiking excursion, tucking his trousers into the tops of his boots to avoid tripping over hidden roots. He slung his army rucksack over his shoulder with a water canteen and camera, and a notebook inside.

The inn was so quiet even the ghosts still slept. Downstairs, the old door creaked as he opened it only enough to squeeze himself through. Despite warmer temperatures during the day, the night was frigid, and Winterfell was covered in a heavy mist that swirled as he walked to the car. He slung his rucksack into the front seat and put the gear in neutral to push away, trying not to wake anyone.

The headlights pierced the mist with strange yellow circles once he started the car on the edge of town. The pocked road from yesterday wasn’t as much of a bother, though he could barely see the holes and didn’t really mind them regardless. The ride was still superior to the army convoys.

He couldn’t be certain that he parked alongside the trail to the old castle ruins, but he’d find it soon enough. It felt strengthening to strap his pack on and set off into the thin woods alone, the distant light of dawn beginning to stain the northern sky a bruised purple. His steps were sure as he trudged along a sheep path, breaking into a clearing much sooner than he expected.

The ruins of old Winterfell spread before him, vast and dead in their fallen gray splendor. The many round towers that once offered views over the entire region were almost collapsed with only one standing tall enough to mimic its former silhouette. The walls were gone entirely. Like so many other abandoned places, the stones had been taken for use in newer structures.

It was still too dark to use the camera or even to sketch, so he decided to let himself just be, to breathe and exist in this place where his namesake had lodged. The remnants of two iron pillars marked where the front gate had stood, so he moved between them into an overgrown courtyard. The purple sky was slowly bleeding into red and orange, but not light enough still.

He heard voices. Yards and yards further into the ruins, many voices bled together in a chant, and Jaime followed it around stone blocks and through half-dismantled archways. Through a small opening into a weedy place that must have once been the godswood. The trees gnarled together with upturned roots forming fences he had to climb over. The chanting grew stronger, the voices separating into harmonies.

He rounded a large mass of trees to witness something he inherently knew was not meant for strangers’ eyes. He ducked behind a fallen trunk, watching as a dozen or more people wearing red cloaks paced with even steps around an enormous white oak. They carried lanterns they swung back and forth in time with the chant’s rhythm. A crystal-clear pool rested so close to their marching feet the mud spit on their boots, yet somehow, no one fell in.  A harsh wind whipped through the wood, spreading the chant everywhere all at once until Jaime felt almost dizzy.

And then it was over. Just like that as the light of dawn turned yellow and it was day. The cloaked people blew out their lanterns and drew their red hoods back. Jaime recognized several faces he’d seen around town, including Mr. Brandon’s. It was startling to see the man who had been so professional and academic in Jaime’s presence now wrapped in crimson after some strange, ancient ritual. The people mingled for a few moments with smiles on their faces before they marched away in single file.

Jaime waited long minutes until he was certain no one was about, and then he crept closer, skirting the edge of the pool until he faced the old tree. There was a face carved in it, so wrinkled from time now it was like an aging crone. Black streaks leaked from the pitted eyes and nostrils, and its grin was enough to make Jaime shiver.

There was an odd shimmering to the face though, like air hovering over a heated road or a ripple in water. He stepped close to the tree and extended his hand, wiggling his fingers to see how it would affect the shimmer. Nothing happened. He shrugged away the foolishness. He was about to step back when he felt a sudden tension on the back of his neck as if someone watched him, and before he could turn, he crashed into the tree.

His hand and stump rose to break the impact, but the instant his skin touched the aged white bark, he felt his body thrumming with enormous energy. His ears rang, he grew nauseous. There was only blackness behind his eyelids, and pain in his stump.

He burst forth as if born from a hurricane, the tree still there in front of him and the dawn still settling itself overhead. His body weaved side to side. He decided he was dizzy with lack of food and sleep. That was certainly it. He regretted not taking better care of himself as his feet slipped backwards and he plunged into the pool with heavy force.

The coldness of the water straightened him out, cleared his mind and stifled the ringing in his ears. He sputtered and struggled to gain footing enough to keep his head above, and he knew instantly he was failing. The slickness of the mud beneath him gave him no purchase. He would drown in this pool in the middle of ruins. He would probably never be found. He gurgled pleas for help in the space between the water and the air. 

A hand grabbed the strap of his rucksack. Jaime could see nothing as he was hauled backwards by a strong set of arms. He wasn’t going to die. He wouldn’t drown alone in a ruined wood. His memory flashed to all the other times he was a hair’s breadth from death, but this was worse. This death would have meant nothing.

The arms held him up, one quickly transferring to slap him on the back as he vomited foul water. His knees gave out, but whoever held him let him down gently to the ground, so gently he merely folded in half with no impact. As the water cleared from his eyes, he saw the green of the wood, no longer dead and grey. The trees no longer untended and twisted. A trick of the mind, he thought, that the wood seemed younger.

The man squatted beside him, and Jaime finally turned his gaze to see who had saved him from a forgotten death. The most vibrant blue eyes he’d ever seen stared back at him, and they were set in the face of no man. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm continuing this now. It's much harder to write than my dumb fluffy stuff, but I'm excited to get this story going, and you definitely don't need to know anything about Outlander to get the gist.

* * *

 

 

Jaime rested his head on his bent knees, still fighting the strange feeling of imbalance pulsing through his body. He kept glancing at his rescuer and those blue eyes of hers.

Yes, she was a woman, that had been instantly obvious, though he’d only seen women like her when his father had taken he and Cersei to the Valyrian games in Braavos years before the war started. The female athletes from Vaes Dothrak and even Meereen were muscled like this woman, with few curves and attitudes of strength carried on their shoulders.

Yet her eyes were soft where theirs had been hard. Still, he wouldn’t want to anger her unnecessarily since there was an obvious edge of steel in her posture. He choked more, clearing his throat of remaining rubbish.

“Thank you,” he muttered in a low, raw voice.

She said nothing, so he looked at her again. He might have mistaken her expression before. It was not soft. It was surprised, and possibly wary. Her skin was very pale and heavily freckled, and her blonde hair shorn short. She wasn’t easy on the eyes, that was certain.

Her thick lips parted, and she almost whispered, though the deepness of her voice remained. “How is it that you are here when I held you as you died?”

Jaime couldn’t help but stare at her for this claim. How could this great tree of a woman know him, or think she knew him? And well enough to hold him? It certainly indicated familiarity, and as he continued to look into her eyes, he saw the truth of it. To her, at least, she had not uttered a lie.

He could not think what to say. She must be ill or otherwise delusional. Maybe she was a victim of war and her mind had been damaged. If so, he should be kind to her. “Ma’am, I…I’m sorry but I think you are mistaking me for someone else.”

She blinked rapidly, once, twice…she looked wounded. “Do you now wish to be rid of me so much that you pretend I am a stranger?”

He parted his lips to deny this, but she halted him with words nearly spat in the space between them.

“Do you claim to be other than Ser Jaime Lannister?”

He sat back and braced his good hand against the ground. How could she know his name? The title was wrong, of course, but the name…

A great, rolling laugh bellowed out of his gut, possibly the first of its kind to appear since the war began. He knew then, what had happened. He’d slipped as he’d stood before the white oak. That was the force he’d felt, and he’d hit his head on the unforgiving trunk. He must be unconscious and dreaming of this strange woman, and in this dream, he was his namesake and carried the title of “Ser.”

He regained control of his humor as he appraised what this large wench wore. Yes, it all fit…her baggy tunic and doeskin trews, her leather boots that were obviously made by hand, the complete lack of any powder or rouge on her face. Why he would dream of such a woman was a great mystery, but he’d go along with it. He had no choice if he were unconscious under that tree. Hopefully, he’d wake up soon without any real damage to his head.

She had grown angry at his laughter, her frown quite magnificent in its arc. “Are you out of your mind?”

This just made him laugh harder, because it was so true. “I believe so.”

“Why is your voice different?” she snapped, that wariness still in her eyes.

“My voice is as it has always been.”

“No.” She shook her head confidently. “It is the same voice, but you are not saying words the same way.”

“Well, I did die apparently.”

She looked abruptly furious, rising from her squat to tower above him like an unattractive avenging angel. “Do not mock what happened. I saw it with my own eyes. I watched you burn up from the inside. I felt you go limp as life left you. You were dead, Ser Jaime. I was there, and I buried you with my own hands.”

Jaime stopped laughing. He stopped feeling any sort of hilarity at all as he craned his neck to see her eyes. They flashed nothing but sincerity and a small hint of pain. He could do nothing but apologize, so he did.

She pulled her shoulders back to stand even taller. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman so tall. “I do not know what sort of dark magic has allowed this. Are you a shadow? Have you been sent by the red woman to trick me? Am I to lead her to Lady Catelyn?”

He didn’t understand anything she said, yet the name niggled in his memory. Lady Catelyn? And this wood was the same as the godswood in the Winterfell ruins…Lady Catelyn Stark of House Stark, sigil the direwolf, words _winter is coming_ from the days when words meant everything. Yes, the good lady _would_ be here in Winterfell if his dreaming mind wanted to be authentic in its environment. As for the magic this wench spoke of…well, he had no notion why he’d somehow make himself die in his dream only to return again in an altered form. Perhaps it was a metaphor, an image of a phoenix as he tried to become someone new after the war.

He shakily rose to his feet, his body heavy from shock and sodden clothes. He had no idea how to address this woman. “Ma’am…uh, my lady, I believe you speak the truth, but I cannot remember our acquaintance.” Yes, this would sort out his situation nicely. “In fact, I remember very little of this realm at all.”

They were nearly of a height as they faced each other, though the woman was taller by perhaps an inch. She glared at him fiercely, the corners of her mouth turned down. “And what other realm would be more familiar? The realm of the dead?”

Jaime recognized his weakness, even in his dream world. He knew nothing of this place and clearly needed this woman on his side, despite her anger. “How could a dead man speak to you like this?”

She took time to respond. He thought she might be a bit slow, but her words when spoken were chosen carefully. “I have seen things that lend no explanation. Not so long ago, I would have dismissed any notion of magic, but now…I do not know who or what you are, but you cannot be Ser Jaime Lannister, not the man I knew. He is dead.”

“Not five minutes ago, you claimed I could be no other,” he complained. “You _are_ a contradictory wench, aren’t you?”

She looked stricken, as if he’d slapped her. Her eyes widened so much they reflected the thick moonlight and fixed on him. She took a step closer, so close he felt her breath on his cheek. He wanted to push her back or extend a leg to kick hers out from under her, to make her fall into that frigid pool because she was so strange, but he simply remained still and let her scan his face until her brow furrowed and she stepped back again.

She said nothing.

“Yes, I am quite glorious, my lady.” He couldn’t help it; he’d learned to hate silence in the war.

“Your hair has been shorn. Your scars are different.” She was almost defensive.

“Have you mapped my scars then? A strange hobby.”

“There was little else to distract me as your rotting hand hung between us all the way to Harrenhal.” She glanced at his stump, and he read pity on her face.

This dream was worse than a nightmare. It was more vivid and discomfiting somehow, as if he’d stepped into the life of his namesake while this wench made up his backstory.

He thought he was in Winterfell based on the similarity of the wood, but perhaps he was wrong. If he recalled correctly, Harrenhal had already been razed by the time Ser Jaime rose to prominence. There’d be no reason for him to have been there.

“Are we in the Harrenhal wood, then?” he asked.

“You know we are in Winterfell.” So she wasn’t as thick as he’d assumed. “And Harrenhal has no wood.”

Jaime couldn’t help himself, his hatred of being ignorant taking over. “Why not?”

She seemed to appraise him again, and whatever she saw in his eyes made her take another step back. “Southrons abandoned the old gods long ago. The Seven live in septs, not woods.”

He wanted to press for so much more, but it wasn’t the time. He was starting to shiver. “I thank you for the answer, but is there a fire nearby?”

She turned without a word and moved beyond the white oak, the blackness eating up her large form, leaving him alone. He hated that worse than he hated silence. So he followed her. He took large steps to avoid exposed tree roots as he had before, but there weren’t any. This place was well kept.

She was bending over a pile of dark cloth, lifting it like a curtain as she picked up one edge. It was a cloak with a thick fur lining. “Give me your saddlebag.”

“What?”

She pointed at his rucksack, but flashed the same look of exasperation he’d seen earlier.

“Ah, yes.” He shrugged the bag off, the dampness making it a struggle until it fell with a thud to the ground. His hand shook from the cold as he tried to squat to pick it up.

“Let me,” she demanded without looking at him.

She hefted the bag easily and examined it as if she’d never seen such a thing in her life. Well, she probably hadn’t in this made-up world that adopted a time before nickel buckles and machine-embroidered patches had been invented. She said nothing, and she still didn’t look at him as she handed him the cloak. The cloth was rough and slightly abrasive, but no worse than his army blankets, and he was grateful for the chance at warmth. He clumsily set one side over his right shoulder and fumbled to reach behind his back for the rest.

Her eyes snapped up from the bag at the sounds of his frustrated exhalations. She settled the bag’s strap over one shoulder and extended a long arm to grab the cloak, settling it around him the way it was meant to fall and tying the leather thongs in a knot next to his collarbone.

“Thank you,” he muttered for the second time.

All she said was, “Come,” as she moved forward, toward what he thought was the godswood’ entrance. He did as she said. He had nowhere else to go.

There were no fallen trunks or tangled layers of underbrush along the way, no sign of abandonment. At least, not there in the wood. The wench paused at the stone archway that separated the wood from the ruins, and he came to stand beside her.

Winterfell, this version, was not in ruins and not in splendor. The building and circular towers all stood tall, but signs of recent fires marked their rooftops. Jaime could smell the stench of old smoke and dead animal, just as it had been in the war. His memory was intruding on his dream in a pathetic way.

The woman moved again, leading him along the edge of the wall. “Stay behind me and keep your face down.”

He kept close, the bulk of her body acting as a decent shield from the few men clearing debris from the open spaces. They never looked up, didn’t seem to care. There was a tangible sense of despair all around, and Jaime wanted to be rid of this place. He reached his hand up to his neck and pinched as hard as he could. He didn’t wake up.

The woman glanced behind her to make sure he still followed, and then stopped before a door to a small tower. She pushed it open and shoved him inside, glancing again to see if anyone had noticed. Jaime stumbled on the lip of a stone step, careening into the solid wall without remembering to shield his stump. His raw flesh slammed against the wall, and his vision went black apart from dozens of flashing yellow stars.

He knew he cried out, he knew he tried to scream from the agony, but the wench’s hand came over his mouth and stopped him. She caught him, too, and drew his back against her chest since his legs decided to buckle. He let his head fall to her shoulder, not caring one bit how pitiable it was, how emasculated he had become.

Her hand fell away once he’d overcome the danger of shouting, and she gently lifted his stump high enough to see. “Blood,” she murmured.

He was bleeding and in such terrible pain that he didn’t understand…anything. Always, in the night, he’d awakened whenever the stump grew tender or became tangled in his sheets. Any hint of pain forced him from sleep. But not now, not when he’d felt the terror of the original injury all over again. He didn’t wake.

His cloudy mind thrust something to the forefront, an image and a song. Red-cloaked villagers who chanted ancient ritual, and something the woman had said. She’d seen inexplicable things, she’d said. A shadow she clearly feared. Something about a red woman.

It was the most irrational thing he’d ever thought, the most ridiculous, but Jaime knew with absolute certainty that this was no dream. He glanced at his stump, still held by the wench. Men in dreams didn’t bleed like that, either.

“This needs tending,” she said, not waiting for him to regain a sense of strength before half-dragging him up the spiral stone stairs.

Jaime felt like he’d lose consciousness very soon, not sure if he could fight it off, but he had to know. “Your name, wench. What’s your name?”

She said nothing until she’d gotten him all the way up and into a dark chamber with the door locked behind them. She set him on a wide bed that had a cloud-soft mattress. It was warm there, all around, and the scent of bread and cheese wafted about.

She bent to stoke a large fire. “My name is Brienne.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, owned not by me and beta'd by ikkiM who stops me from overusing ellipses. Seriously, I have a problem!

* * *

Jaime’s head pounded as he rested it on a dingy feather pillow. Pain still traveled in waves from his stump to his chest, making his entire body tense in a feeble attempt to brace himself. This was what Cersei didn't understand. He knew she hated the sight of his stump, but more than that, she dismissed his sometimes intolerable pain as a weakness. So had the army doctor, and many of the soldiers he’d encountered once he was sent back to Westeros as the war ended.

It was just a hand, neatly severed at the wrist so the bones hadn’t even been disturbed too much. A soldier, a _commander_ , should not have felt so much pain. It was the nerves. A hand had so many, snaking up the fingers and all around the palms, so a man could feel. That’s what everyone failed to consider. There were five senses, and because the sense of touch was not constrained to a single hand, there wasn’t much pity about its loss. But how else could he fully feel? Was he meant to stroke a woman’s skin with his elbow? Could he test the plumpness of a berry with his wrist or change the oil in his car with a foot? So many things required the use of two hands.

Jaime heard himself groan against the down, turning his head to stifle the sound so the woman wouldn’t think him any weaker than she already did. He felt every nerve in his stump as the heat of the fire warmed his body. It was like a living fire coming from within.

The woman put a small pot over the flames and reached to draw something from a sack in one corner of the tiny room. A wad of fabric. She put it in the pot and poured wine from a jug over it, letting it heat as she rose to move only a few steps to sit by his side on the bed. She loomed there, a mass of blonde hair and pale skin. She dipped gentle fingers beneath his stump to lift it, but he shook his head despite the lurching feeling it caused.

“No. Please.” _No more pain_. He couldn’t stand it.

She glared at him with those blue eyes, waiting until he was forced to focus on them. “I will not see you die of this again. Allow me to tend it, or I will knock you unconscious and do it anyway.”

He could see she meant it. It might be a relief to sleep through the process, but he finally nodded jerkily and frowned as her other hand began unwrapping his bandage. He watched her, noticing how she felt the texture of the gauze, studied the crisscross pattern of the weave. She wouldn’t have seen a dressing like it before. It didn’t yet exist.

She didn’t flinch when the raw flesh was revealed, didn’t move back from the sour smell. His blood began to color her fingers a proper Lannister crimson. He wanted to draw his arm back, to spare her and everyone in Westeros from the pathetic view of his loss, but she moved back to the fire before he could do so. She wrung the wad of cloth, letting the excess wine fall back into the pot, and she returned with both, as well as a pail that had rested next to the fire.

Her knees clunked against the hard stone once she’d lowered herself, and she drew his stump to hover over the pail. He didn’t understand why she covered his mouth with her left hand until she poured the hot wine onto his wound. It hurt almost as bad as slamming it into the wall, and he made animal noises under her palm, clutching the bed linens with his good hand as he fought to stop himself from biting his tongue.

“Just once more,” she said, her voice calm, though her eyes told a different story.

He stared at them as she poured again, watching how they clouded. She was sorry for the pain, he could tell. He let out a weighty breath once she tucked the stump back against his side. She held the wad of cloth and sat on the bed again, drawing his arm across her lap so she could re-bandage the wound. The smell had gone, but it was redder than before.

She held the ravaged flesh higher to examine it. Her eyes grew darker as her pupils dilated. Her lips parted to say something, but he could see that she changed her mind. She pressed her lips tightly together, carefully choosing her words. “This could easily fester. I will have to wash it again before the moon rise.”

Jaime caught sight of the gash the stone wall had made, and the inflamed tissue surrounding it. His time in the wood had done the wound no favors, either. “The water in that pool is probably teaming with germs,” he muttered.

She peered down at him. “Germs?”

He realized his error. “Yes, um, tiny…creatures.”

“There are no creatures in that pool.” Still she stared, unnerving him. This giantess was cleverer than she appeared, probably cleverer than she let anyone see.

“They are tiny. As I said. You can’t see them.”

“Then how do you know they are there?” Her brow furrowed, and she reached out a hand to rest on his forehead. “You are not burning. Do you see things? Fire? Tiny creatures?”

A good hallucination would explain everything away, but he didn’t think he could be convincing enough to manage such a ruse. “I see only you and my rotten flesh.” This was the truth, and best to admit it.

She returned to her bandaging. “Then your view is hideous indeed.”

He said nothing, but he didn’t like that way she so quickly compared herself to his stump. And he didn’t know why he didn’t like it. “Thank you,” he said hastily.

She said nothing and didn’t look up.

And he hated silence. “Tell me how I died.”

Her fingers stumbled, wrinkling the smooth cloth she had soaked in the wine. “Painfully.”

The single word was a whisper that took up the whole room.

He had to know. The Jaime she’d buried had to be his ancestor, and if the first Jaime had died so young and so early in the War of the Five Kings, it explained why he’d found no record of his exploits later on. He felt foolish even thinking such a thing, but his conviction that he was living in the past was stronger than ever. No man could invent the scent of boiled wine on seething skin.

“Tell me,” he demanded, still hearing a foreign inflection of desperation there.

She bandaged and breathed and spoke. “You claim to remember nothing, and I believe it. You would not forget what happened even in your fever.”

She paused again, and he prodded again. “Where was this?”

“Beyond Harrenhal.” There was no inflection, just a dead word he struggled to place.

Harrenhal…the massive ruined fortress in the middle of the south. The place was called Lordsbane now. Or then. In the future. It was home to a lumber mill and weapons factories.

“What happened beyond Harrenhal?” He watched her eyes and her fingers as they deftly wound the cloth. This was not the first time she had dressed such a wound, he could tell.

“You ate an apple and you died.”

He wanted to laugh. It was a ridiculous claim, as if a simple apple had killed him. Maybe it had. “I choked to death?”

She finished wrapping and tucked the end of the cloth under a fold to secure it. It was certainly a better job than he’d ever done himself, even if the cloth was old and stained instead of clean white gauze.

“Your wound festered,” she said. “We rode towards King’s Landing with Qyburn and Bolton’s men. He claimed to heal you. He was wrong.”

She left so much out, as if it were painful to explain, but if he were to survive in this place, he needed to know all that he could. “Please, wench, I must understand.”

His stump fell unceremoniously to her lap as she puffed with anger. “Do not call me that, ever again. My name is Brienne.”

Perhaps it was a dismissive term, a low term, but there was more to her objection. She was so easy to read, those blue eyes betraying her mood. “I called you that before, didn’t I?”

It was something he would do. He knew that. He had nicknames for everyone but Cersei who would never allow it, and if he were similar in personality to his namesake as he was beginning to suspect, the first Jaime would have taken to a goading title as well. The blue flashed in warning and in loathing, at him or at herself he couldn’t tell.

“Yes,” she mumbled.

The singe of the wine was fading back into a delicious numbness in his stump, and he rose on his elbows to gain some height, though it wouldn’t matter. His question did. “Do you believe I’m Jaime?”

Her hesitation was an answer in itself, though she spoke as well. “I’m not certain.”

“Why?” He had to know this too, so he could alter things to pass as himself in another life.

This time, her brows rose magnificently. “Because you died! I am no fool. People don’t die and return in another place weeks later. They don’t come back with injuries the same yet not the same. They don’t come back with an accent foreign to their birth.”

So it was the voice again, but the other? “Explain. And please…Brienne, I must know what you saw.”

She turned away from him, still sitting on the bed but with her legs stretched out and her face only visible in profile. “I’ve said. Your scars are different. Your stump is different. _You_ are different, yet exactly the same. That I cannot explain.” She stole a quick look at his face, her discomfort plain to see. “As we rode, outlaws killed many of Bolton’s men. You were too weak to fight when another attack came, but you did it anyway and opened your wound. You soon grew feverish, and Qyburn had neglected to bring the necessary potions to help you, thinking you were well enough that he wouldn’t need them. Old fool.”

“Who is Qyburn?” Jaime interrupted, fearing he wouldn’t be able to follow her tale without more knowledge.

She squared her shoulders. He could tell each new admission of ignorance wounded her somehow. “The maester at Harrenhal. He accompanied you when you left for King’s Landing.”

The old doctors, half-alchemists and half-septons. “When _I_ left? But you were there?”

She grimaced. “Not the first time.”

“I don’t understand.”

There was a strange hardness to her gaze as she allowed herself to look at him. “That I will not explain. I was there after, and that is all that matters.”

What did she conceal? He’d have to earn her trust enough to get it out of her, or the curiosity would burn in his mind. “All right. Then I died, no?”

“Not quite.” She peered at her lap, twisting her fingers together. “We had to make camp. Qyburn advised that you remain still for some time to fight the fever. I guarded you with the others, but the outlaws found us. The rest of Bolton’s men chased them off, but they failed to return, and I do not know whether they deserted us in the wood or if they were killed. We were alone then, with Qyburn. I did not trust him, not after what he did at Harrenhal.”

This time, Jaime did not question her. Whatever had happened in that place seemed to be an unpleasant memory for this big woman, and he knew enough of the world to understand that no woman, however large and capable, was safe from every man. He wondered if she had been assaulted. It wouldn’t surprise him. Even in Essos where he’d been stationed, he’d seen things he’d never wished to see. Things he couldn’t scrub from his vision. There was something about killing that boiled the blood of men, something that could only be quieted between the legs of a woman. Many men didn’t wait for permission in those times.

He let himself wonder in silence, waiting for her to resume.

“He found some plant he made you chew, but it did nothing. You grew so hot your breath was steam against the night wind. I washed you. I found a stream and held you in it, but you only burned, and after the bath and what you said about Aerys…I did not want to let you burn. There was nothing to be done, in the end.”

“I died in a stream,” he muttered. The war fear flooded back, all those times he’d known he would die in a muddy field, alone and forgotten. He’d been afraid to die like that, and he hated that his namesake met that fate.

“You died in a stream as I held you,” she whispered.

Yes, that distinction was important. Ser Jaime Lannister hadn’t been alone. This odd, ugly woman kept him from being alone, and that would have meant something to Ser Jaime as it did to him now.

“Thank you for not leaving me alone.”

He thought she would stare at the floor or her fingers, but she jerked to face him. “I failed you. I failed Lady Catelyn, and I broke my oath. Part of me died in that stream, too.”

He didn’t understand half of her claims, but he knew the feeling of failure. “If I died of fever, there was nothing you could have done.”

“I could have insisted that we find an inn for you to rest. I could have tied you to your horse again. There is always something that can be done.” She faced the fire until he could only see her back.

He had an inexplicable urge to make her feel better. “I am clearly not dead now, so that must mean something.”

She didn’t respond.

“What did you do with my body?”

“I buried you in the wood beneath the stump of an old weirwood and marked the place with a cut to the bark.”

Jaime laughed before he could stop it. “You buried a stump beneath a stump. How fitting.”

“Don’t mock my failure,” she warned, though there was no real threat to her tone.

“I mock only myself, my lady.”

“Your stump is not a thing of mockery.” Her head bent toward the fire in defeat.

“Neither are you.” The words tumbled from his lips unbidden, and he rushed forward before she could reply. “Where is this Qyburn?”

“With Lady Catelyn. He wanted to press on to King’s Landing, but I was afraid that if your death became known, the Stark girls would be executed. I took him prisoner and returned to my lady.”

Jaime struggled to remember the histories he’d read. The Stark family had been at the center of the old war, inciting and battling in every corner of Westeros, and there was something about a Stark daughter being held in the capitol. So much was missing though, so much unknown that hadn’t been rewritten by the Targaryen queen to make her rule seem more legitimate. The state of things before her reconquest was dim indeed.

But if Brienne claimed that multiple Stark daughters were at risk because of Ser Jaime’s death, then it implied that his life would somehow secure their safety. An exchange then. Yes, that made sense. And it seemed that very few knew he had died.

“Then I am still alive to most everyone?”

“Yes. Only Qyburn, Lady Catelyn, and King Robb know you perished. And now I must tell them you live still by some dark magic. They will be pleased, I think.” She rose to put more wood on the fire.

“ _You_ are not. Don’t pretend. I can see it.” He sat up and swung his legs to the floor, trying to clear his head of the remaining fog from the pain.

“I did not wish for you to die.” Her words were forceful and true.

“But you are suspicious of me now. I understand.”

Finally, she looked at him. “As I said, you are the same and not the same.”

How very true that was.

“So what will you do with me?”

It was imperative to know this so he could formulate a plan. He could not allow this Lady Catelyn or King Robb to send him away from Winterfell. He must find the wood and a way to return to his own world, a way back to Cersei. A tiny hint of guilt clouded his mind as he thought of the disappointment this wench would feel upon his disappearance. It shouldn’t bother him, he thought. Not at all.

“I will take you to Lady Catelyn. There is still a chance to recover her daughters with your exchange, and what ground was lost might yet be regained.”

He could allow this. A tour of the Winterfell grounds could prove useful to his escape. “All right then. I’ll speak with your lady.”

She sneered quite frighteningly, if he were a lesser man. “Your approval is meaningless. You are still in my charge, and I will not have you weakening yourself again. Rest this night. We ride in the morning.”

“Ride?” This did not sound conducive to his plan.

“Of course. This place is a wasteland.”

She meant to leave Winterfell entirely. He could not allow that if he had a hope of getting back home. He would have to find a way to run from her during the night, or else convince her to return to the wood before riding off. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d fall for such a ruse so easily.

“Then why are you here?”

“There was a rumor that Arya Stark had been seen heading north. Lady Catelyn believed Arya might seek her family at Winterfell, or perhaps her half-brother at the wall. I was sent to follow her trail, but there has been nothing. A false lead.” She hung her head again, in what he recognized as her mechanism of failure.

“Right then, tomorrow we ride.”

She allowed a small glance before unrolling a thin mattress that seemed to be made of packed straw encased in canvas, and she lay upon it before the fire, her long legs blocking any hope of getting out the door.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Jaime forced himself to stay awake long after the moonlight had moved on from piercing the small tower window. Long after the woman stopped turning from side to side to seek comfort on her stiff mat. He stiffly swung his legs to the floor, paused a moment, stood, paused again. Her breathing didn’t change, the dim light of the fire’s embers allowing him to see the regular motion of her chest.

He stepped to the door, eased it open a crack. The old hinges creaked like the tank he’d ridden in not so long ago, all screeching metal and objection. He glanced at the woman, Brienne, and made sure she still slept. Nothing had changed, so he eased the door open just enough to squeeze himself through, just enough so it wouldn’t hit her outstretched foot.

His body felt as if it might collapse, but he knew this would be his only chance to get back to the wood. The narrow stairs seemed like a ladder descending into an endless cavern. The even heavier door at the bottom felt like a ten-ton stone. Icy wind lashed against his cheek as he emerged into the night, and he wished he’d thought to take the woman’s thick cloak with him. As it was, he’d just have to hope he didn’t freeze before the wood could reclaim him.

Their footsteps from earlier were gone now, but Jaime remembered the way and retraced the route. The gate to the wood wasn’t far, though his legs protested the journey after all his body had gone through. His stump wasn’t cold though, nor uncomfortable beyond its usual itching. That was something at least.

The snow fell thicker in the wood since there were no towers to interfere. He was glad for the lack of exposed roots. Once or twice, he thought he was taking too long to reach the giant old tree and the pool, but he stumbled on it so quickly he nearly fell in again. There was a thin rim of ice along the edge. He ignored it and moved his shivering body to the tree, staring at the carved face without a clue what to do.

His fingers were starting to numb as he reached out to touch the bark, closing his eyes in expectation of that same shocking thing that happened before. There was nothing. He touched again, and again, pressing his whole palm to the tree and cursing the face as if it were a bitter old hag bent on causing him misery.

“Damn you,” he muttered, then shouted louder and louder. “Damn you! Take me back, take me home.”

He pounded on the bark, kicked it and screamed at it. This inanimate bitch of a tree was keeping him from his life, from Cersei. She’d be frantic with worry by now. She’d be looking for him, thinking something terrible had happened. And it had. He had to get back.

Something was missing. The red-cloaked people, he knew, but also the pool. He couldn’t produce a tribe of strange villagers, but the pool remained, clear and deathly cold. He spun to face it and saw his moonlit reflection in its depths, a face he barely recognized with scars too new to feel a part of him.

He and Cersei had stopped looking so similar as to be interchangeable once past youth, but now, he didn’t even resemble the man who had been her brother. It was obvious they were related, but no one would assume him to be her twin anymore, not with hair that had darkened from bright gold to burnished bronze from stress and age. Not with the hardness of his features and the bags under his eyes from years of exhaustion. He stepped closer to the pool’s edge, intent on letting himself fall. He knew this wasn’t what the tree needed to grant him mercy. It was the red men. Not this. If he stepped in now, there would be no giant woman to haul him out. It would mean his death.

There was a part of him that thought it might be better to die and be done with it. That part had made itself known the first time he’d been caught in an Essosi village with bombs going off all around. Maybe dying was easier than waiting to be shattered into pieces. Maybe dying was easier now, if he couldn’t get back. 

He sank to his knees by the pool, failing to find courage for the plunge. Yes, dying would certainly be easier, but he hadn’t kept himself alive through five years of war just to drown in a pool. He pushed himself back against the tree, wrapping his good arm around himself for warmth, and he let his head fall back so the snow began to catch on his lashes.

 

* * *

 

When he woke up, the sun had already colored the sky orange, and the snow had stopped. He wasn’t freezing, though he unconsciously drew the thick wool closer around him. His eyes snapped open again. He could tell by the fabric’s feel that it was the woman’s cloak, and as he lifted his head from its perch on his folded arm, he spotted her sitting a few yards away. She was wrapped in another cloak with an even thicker fur collar. His bag lay open at her feet, his portable camera resting on one of her palms as she brought her face close to examine it.

“How was this crafted?” She asked in a moderate, neutral tone as if she were requesting scrambled eggs for breakfast. She hadn’t looked at him, just knew somehow he was awake.

He wanted to curse her, shout at her for simply being there when all he wanted was to _not_ be there, but he didn’t.

“Carefully,” he muttered with a hint of a grudge. “Piece by piece.”

She tilted her homely face to peer at him, those blue eyes calculating and mistrustful. “What does it do?”

He couldn’t very well explain the truth, but maybe something… “It helps capture people.”

Her expression didn’t change, but her tone was demanding. “Tell me how to use it.”

Maybe he should. Maybe he could use the battery-operated flash apparatus to terrify her long enough to escape. It probably wouldn’t work anyhow, after the fall in the water. “No.”

She turned back to the camera and carefully repacked it in the oilcloth case, then back in the bag. “Pity. I would have used it on you.”

She stared for just a moment too long at the bag, and Jaime knew that she didn’t completely believe him about his strange object. No, she wasn’t stupid. He’d have to be careful what he said around her, but he would be the stupid one not to use her for information.

“What rituals are performed here?” he asked as casually as he could manage.

“Only those decided by the North men. Nothing I know, and nothing to help you _get back_.” She didn’t face him.

So she’d heard him. She hadn’t been asleep at all and had let him leave, maybe to see where he would go and what he would do. He laughed aloud at the thought, because of course she’d followed him. He would have frozen to death in a flash if she hadn’t covered him with the cloak almost immediately.

“What did you think of my little show, eh wench?” He goaded her on purpose, because she was the only person there to goad.

She jolted to her feet, the black of her cloak making her tall body seem a dark column against the snow. “I told you never to call me that.”

“So you did. I didn’t listen.”

“You never do,” she muttered before a startled look crept over her features, twisting them into each other as her brows lowered and her lips tightened. “You are not Ser Jaime Lannister.”

“So you’ve said,” he kept prodding.

She stepped closer to peer at him as she had the camera. “How can you be so much the same inside when your face is wrong?”

Jaime’s spirit of angry mirth faded. This woman unnerved him somehow. “How can you even think me sane after watching me beat a tree with one hand?”

She continued to stare. “It is said there are men who can change their faces at will. I’d say you are one of them.”

“You would, but you aren’t.” He could see she was making excuses to understand how he was there with her while the Jaime she had known was dead. He could barely explain it to himself, so he didn’t blame her for trying.

“As I said, it’s your face that is wrong. I know Ser Jaime’s face far better than my own. You are not him.” She’d stood taller with every phrase, her voice growing stronger.

And he could still see that it pained her to look at him. How had she known his namesake? Out of respect to his ancestor, Jaime didn’t want to harm this woman who had cared enough to give Ser Jaime some semblance of a proper burial. At the very least, she wasn’t Ser Jaime’s enemy. He didn’t want her to be his either, if only because he clearly kept placing himself in danger without even realizing it. So he owed her some bit of truth at least.

He sucked in a biting breath. “I am not the Jaime Lannister you once knew.”

She said nothing, moved not one finger. And then she picked up his bag and began marching out of the wood. When she was nearly out of sight, she called over her shoulder. “You will accompany me or I will knock you out and tie you to a horse.”

He knew she meant it, so for the second time, he followed her out of the wood and into the Winterfell courtyard. This time, no one moved about and all was silence. Brienne headed towards a low-roofed building that stank of shit even from a distance. A stable. There was a young boy inside who clambered for the coin Brienne flicked towards him.

“Ready my horse and another for my…companion,” she commanded.

“Yes, Lady Brienne.” The boy scurried off.

Jaime cringed. The last time he’d ridden a horse, he’d been fleeing a village ambush as the enemy rolled in with machine guns and bloodlust. He’d barely ducked out of the safe house where a Westerosi sympathizer had shielded him, and he’d run across a field only to jump on the back of an unsaddled brown beast who tore off in terror of the gunfire. He’d vowed then that the only creature he’d even allow between his legs again would be a woman.

So much for that vow. The boy soon led out two snorting brown beasts, well-muscled and sleek, and certainly less angry than his escape mount. Brienne moved out to the yard and added his bag to the others tied to the saddle of the bigger horse before mounting it in a surprisingly graceful move. She stared at him in expectation.

Jaime groaned but moved to his own sour creature. Fortunately, the saddle and stirrups were a familiar shape. Some things didn’t change much over the centuries, and he felt confident that he could manage without falling off. He felt Brienne’s eyes on his back as he gripped the pommel with his hand, placing his left foot into the stirrup and using the strength in his thigh to push himself up.

It was supposed to be easy, _should_ have been easy, but no. He remained standing on one foot on a rough-beaten iron bar because he couldn’t use the leverage of two hands to swing himself properly into the saddle. That would take the luxury of practice.

A heavy thud sounded behind him. Brienne had dismounted, and she quickly appeared on the other side of his horse. She didn’t look at him as she reached her right arm up high. He shouldn’t trust her to help, shouldn’t need to trust her at all, but it seemed he had no choice. Pretending that he wasn’t humiliated was pointless.

He extended his stump towards her and waited for her lips to twist in disgust at having to touch it again. Instead, firm fingers wrapped around his bicep and pulled him enough to settle him in the saddle. Still she didn’t look up.

The boy reached up to hand him the reins, and before he could really adjust, Brienne was back on her own steed and kicking her heels in her stirrups to move off. His horse followed without a word or motion from him. So that was how it would be. He grimaced as if the beast consciously betrayed his intent to escape, to lose the woman on the road somewhere and return to Winterfell to find someone who knew about the Red Men.

Brienne said nothing and didn’t look back at him once. Her body was stiff in the saddle as if a shotgun rested across her shoulders underneath the heavy cloak. She was alert and suspicious, of him and of their surroundings equally. Jaime felt so tired he was afraid he’d fall off the horse at some point, but the bitter cold managed to ward off that embarrassment. They moved through a grove of trees he thought he recognized, and then down a path with a view overlooking a valley below a rocky outcropping.

That valley was where Winterfell village had been, where the inn had been. Now, though the packed dirt road seemed nearly the same, the valley was empty of life and habitation. No thatched buildings. No Mr. Brandon to spout random histories or secretly wear a red cloak.

Jaime felt weighed down by despair. His chest clenched, his one hand shaking as he struggled to maintain hold of the reins. If he couldn’t find a way back, and every step away from Winterfell made that more possible, he’d be forced to live out his days in this hazardous, inhospitable world with only a massive snarling woman to keep him company. And Cersei would never know what happened to him. Oh, she’d survive, she always did, and probably thrive using her wits, but it would never be the same. He didn’t want her to mourn him like that. Better he’d died in the war than this.

Perhaps if he set aside his urgency to return and played a longer game, he could manage to gather more information and resources. Perhaps he could even use Brienne’s strange connection to Ser Jaime to advance his own agenda. He lightly kicked his horse to speed its steps, trotting forward to settle again next to Brienne, staring at her intently though she barely blinked an acknowledgement.

“Where is your Lady Catelyn since she wasn’t safe in her frozen home?” He asked, trying to gain some sense of their destination.

There it was again, the tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth that she seemed to allow each time he said something he was already supposed to know. “I expect she’s arrived at the Twins by now.

Ah yes, the river fork midway between Winterfell and King’s Landing. He and Cersei had stopped there on their way north. The booming industrial city of Freyston hadn’t offered much beyond a barebones hotel and diner.

“And is that where you’re taking me?”

“Of course. Lady Catelyn will know what to do with you.” She said this such absolute certainty that Jaime knew she was convincing herself.

He leaned closer, almost perilously. “Are you sure? What makes you think Lady Catelyn will believe I’m suddenly quite alive after you told her yourself you’d buried me?”

She twisted to face him, her eyes flashing with anger. “She will believe. She and I have witnessed the same darkness.”

“Then let me hear what you’d do with me, so when we hear Lady Catelyn’s plan, I may compare and determine who’s the smarter.” He grinned mischievously, and it wasn’t entirely feigned.

“It would be obvious upon meeting Lady Catelyn.”

“That’s probably true,” he faced the road for a moment as his horse veered too close to hers. “You’re already vexingly clever.”

A bright red flush crept over her skin as she stared. “You misunderstand.”

A weakness then. She didn’t believe herself to be clever, and he might be able to use that. “I understand perfectly. You are no peasant.”

“I am no lady.” She spat the words and faced the road.

He remembered what the stable boy had said. “I think you are, _Lady Brienne_. What is your full name?”

She grimaced. “Lady Brienne of Tarth, daughter of Lord Selwyn Tarth, the Evenstar.”

Weren’t highborn ladies of old supposed to be mythically beautiful, with tiny waists and flowing locks and pretty bow lips? Jaime laughed aloud. “Now that does sound impressive. Do you have calling cards for that?”

“Clearly I have not understood you at all. You spout nonsense.”

“That I do, wench. That I do.”

She didn’t bother demanding not to be called that, merely clicked her heels to get ahead of him again.  They rode in silence for hours.

When the sun sank to the west and the chill around him grew worse, Brienne finally slowed to barely a walk. He called up to her, “Time to piss? You haven’t stopped once.”

She waited until he rode beside her again. “Time to find shelter.”

He’d seen that calculating look in her eyes before. “What’s the dilemma?”

He’d said something again, he could tell when she flinched. If only he knew how to read her better. “There is an inn ahead, but you cannot be seen.”

“I see. Risk the biting cold and danger of wild beasts, or risk someone recognizing me and ruining your little plan, whatever that may be.”

“Wild beasts are little danger to me. Wild men might be.”

At least she recognized her precarious position as a lone woman. “The inn then. I’ll stay out of sight.” He didn’t want to spend another night in the cold.

It was clear she didn’t trust him, but she prodded her horse faster anyway. “If there are too many people there, we move on.”

They rounded the bend in the road to see a two-story timber structure nestled in a small field, a stable to one side with a smithy attached. No one was outside. Brienne walked her horse cautiously into the inn yard, glancing around as if she expected to be attacked. It was probably a good attitude to have. She dismounted and immediately unhooked his bag to hang over her shoulder.

She stared at him and raised one brow. He shrugged as he swung his leg over the saddle and nearly fell to the mud below.

“Pull up the hood,” she demanded, staring until he complied. “Keep your face down and your arm concealed.”

He awkwardly pulled the edges of the cloak closer to hide his stump.

She shouted, “Stable boy!” No one came. She shouted again.

A wizened old woman peered around the inn door. “Ain’t no stable boy anymore, m’lady. Off to the war. Ye’ll have to tie them beasts up yourself.” The woman peered around Brienne. “Who’s that ye’ve got with you? Man of the Watch?”

Jaime bent closer to the ground. Brienne tried to sound dismissive. “Of course not, just my servant. Have you a room available?”

“Aye, but it’ll cost.”

“I have just enough to pay,” Brienne claimed, and wisely. “I will want supper as well. Whatever is hot.”

“Yes, m’lady.” The old woman moved back inside, but Jaime thought her tone was slightly mocking. By her voice alone, Brienne was clearly not lowborn, so he wasn’t sure why the old woman would show her disrespect.

Brienne moved close to Jaime and muttered under her breath. “Follow, and do not so much as step falsely. I am faster than you.”

In his current state, he thought this was probably true, so he kept close behind her as she led the horses to the stable. There were several more inside, but none so well cared for as those they rode. Brienne was about to remove her horse’s saddle when the old woman’s voice rang out across the yard.

“M’lady! Man wants to speak to ya!”

Brienne glanced at him, her eyes troubled, but he couldn’t tell whether it was over this _man_ or him.

“Stay,” she called over her shoulder.

He shrugged with one shoulder, the good one. “Where would I go?”

He watched her move into the yard, standing tall with one hand lurking near the pommel of her sword. There were three men there with the old woman. Not such good odds for Brienne should it come to that. He glanced at the horses. It would be very easy to mount one and lead the other behind, take off through the yard and down the road before Brienne could run back to him. He could do it, he knew. She’d certainly follow, but if he didn’t head to Winterfell right away and instead found some other small village to hide in until she’d given up, he could have free rein of the north. He could find those Red Men and get back home.

Two of the men in the yard broke away and headed toward the stables. They would block his exit if he tried to ride off, and the moment was quickly passing. Before he could consciously decide to take the risk, his feet carried him back into the stall with Brienne’s horse. His hand grabbed a brush hanging from a peg, and he concealed himself behind the brown beast as he feigned servitude.

The men’s laughter echoed between the plank walls. They halted nearby, glancing at his hunched form since they could hear the sound of his brushing; they dismissed him as he’d hoped.

“Can you believe that big bitch? Never seen a woman like that before.” One of the men slurred as if he’d had too much to drink.

The other still laughed. “You sure it’s a woman at all?”

“Maybe there’s a cock between her legs, maybe there’s not.”

“You want to find out, eh?”

“Course. Biggest woman I’d ever have. Maybe I’ll just send her a bucket o’ale and find her in her room later. See how loud she squeals. Like fucking a breed sow.”

“Well, you do like pork.”

The men snorted and laughed as if their words meant nothing at all. Jaime’s gut clenched. His hand settled on the reigns of the horse as he watched the men check the stables for some reason and return to the yard. By then, Brienne had finished her conversation and headed back to him.

He dropped the reins.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am trying to post once a week on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Here's to a proper schedule and more action since I feel that I'm finally getting to the good stuff now :-)
> 
> Eternal thanks to Mikki for beta-ing.


	5. Chapter 5

 

“What did those men want?” he asked as Brienne approached.

“They watched us arrive from the north. They wanted word of Winterfell.” She resumed caring for the horses without looking at him.

“What are you hiding?” He circled the beast to stand next to her.

There was anger and disgust in her eyes. “They’re Bolton’s men. They wanted confirmation that the Stark boys are dead.”

Something about her tone made Jaime defensive, though he didn’t understand the context of her explanation. “Were those boys at Winterfell? Is that why you didn’t want to be seen there?”

Her lips twisted in a near-snarl. “I did not want _you_ to be seen there. And yes, the Stark boys, who were such young children, were killed there by someone King Robb trusted.” She did snarl then. “As if you cared.”

Jaime stood straighter. “Children should never die like that, but what does it have to do with me?”

“Nothing at all. You didn’t murder them. You simply crippled one so he couldn’t expose your treacherous affection for your sister.”

He felt the color drain from his face. “I did no such thing.”

“You forget yourself, Kingslayer. I know your secrets.” She handled his saddle roughly as if it were his neck.

Jaime felt anger rise in his chest. This self-righteous woman knew nothing about him, not the real him. “Take your opinions elsewhere, wench. You’ve said I’m not Ser Jaime. My secrets are my own.”

She flinched at the reminder that he wasn’t the same man, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from pouring out her anger. “Do you swear you’ve never pushed an innocent boy from a tower just to hide your shame?”

“I swear it on my mother’s grave and on my lost hand,” he said instantly.

And still she pushed. “Do you swear you’ve never known your sister the way no man should know his sister?”

He blanched again. This he couldn’t swear, couldn’t convincingly lie about. She saw it and twisted her lips in disdain.

“And what about Kingslayer, wench?” he nearly shouted at her back. “No accusation about that?”

He knew that story, how Ser Jaime slaughtered King Aerys when he had sworn to protect the venerated old man.

Brienne’s shoulders sagged. “I told you I know your secrets.”

There was something there, something not in the story. The anger fled her face leaving a red-tinged mix of embarrassment and failed combat. He thought on her claims and found himself shocked by them. There had never been anything in the histories about Ser Jaime and his own twin, and he knew it had been illegal then to even think of such a relationship, just as it was in his own time. As it should be. He knew that, too.

So she did know his secrets. He wondered if Ser Jaime had told her about that himself, and if so, why he ever would. _Who is this woman?_ He wondered for the thousandth time in the span of a day.

She stayed silent as they finished tending the horses and moved across the yard into the inn. The old woman kept glancing at him as if she knew he was no servant, but she was savvy enough to say nothing. Jaime’s head swam as he attempted to piece together the circumstances of this mad time and how Ser Jaime had fit into them. He felt almost as if he had amnesia and was trying to place himself back into a life he couldn’t recall where everybody knew more about him than he did himself.

Brienne gave the old woman a coin and shoved him in front of her to ascend a set of narrow stairs covered in some sticky unknown. He only let himself breathe again when she’d closed the door to a small room behind them. Two stuffed heads were the only decoration, a boar and a stag mounted on the wall with empty eye sockets. Jaime wanted to make a joke about the tattered heads living in peace with a warm fire when they’d been exposed to the cold, but he stopped himself. Brienne peered at the stag with wide eyes and parted lips. She caught him watching and quickly turned away, the stiffness of her shoulders warning him not to ask.

“Women,” he muttered under his breath.

A supper platter was set on a low table, and he frowned at yet another display of bread and cheese, this time with a number of flies hovering around. At least there was a steaming bowl of some brown liquid, hopefully broth.

And then he wanted to laugh. None of this was so different from his war experience. The small villages, the primitive living standards, the smell of danger and piss. Even the fleas he spotted on the bed’s mattress. He knew the shock would hit him soon, but all he felt now was that same burning urge to get home battling a burgeoning sense of resignation . He allowed himself a split second of weakness to admit he might never find a way back. Then the second was over.

Brienne poured water from a jug and handed it to him. He gulped it down though it tasted like sulfur, and then he shook off the thick cloak. His shoulders suddenly felt so light they might float away, and he shrugged out of his jacket as well. Without a word, Brienne took them both and hung them on a peg, but she fingered the fabric of the jacket as she had done with the things in his bag. He watched her thumb glide over the row of snaps and realized he should never have let her examine his modern remnants so closely. Nothing to do about it now, despite Brienne’s clear curiosity.    

“There is a privy across the hall,” she commented, almost absentmindedly.

“Excellent.”

“I will hear if you go elsewhere.” Still she examined the jacket.

“I won’t.”

“True. It is too soon for you to try again.” She unclasped her sword belt but set the blade on the bed next to her when she sat.

He stole a glance at her downturned face before he went to use the privy. He didn’t even attempt to escape, but he did lament the lack of soap just as he had during the war. Brienne had sucked down half the broth by the time he returned.

“Here.” She handed him the bowl.

He sank to the floor and shared the rations as he had with his comrades after a battle. That’s what this woman felt like, a member of his company, and he wondered how well she’d watch his back if it came to that. He wondered if he’d watch hers.

He caught sight of her face as she finished off the bread. She had shown remarkable energy on the road, but now she struggled to conceal her exhaustion. She probably hadn’t slept in days, certainly not the previous night when she’d lain awake to see what he would do.

When she left to use the privy herself, he undid her bedroll and settled it along the wall. He used his cloak as a blanket. The bed was plenty big enough for them both, but he didn’t think she’d take kindly to the idea.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she stepped back in the room, almost an accusation.

“You’re tired. Take the bed.”

She gaped like a fresh-caught fish. He just stared at her in challenge. She’d have to pry him from the floor if she wanted to object. Finally, she yanked her boots off and stretched on the bed, but she used no blanket.

He knew he slept, but it was light and not long. The moon was high when a scratching noise in the hall made him bristle. Brienne did sleep this time. He could now tell the difference, the way her lips were slightly parted and her shoulders relaxed against the mattress. He rose to his haunches and fumbled for her sword, but then he remembered she had it next to her on the bed. He grabbed her boot instead, and to his delight, he felt a stiffness within. He drew out a dagger. Clever wench.

The scratching was replaced by a shuffle and the sound of heavy breathing. Jaime rose to stand by the door. What kind of inn had no locks?

The door pushed toward him an inch or so, and thick fingers appeared in the crack. Jaime slammed the door back with his shoulder, crushing the fingers between. The man from the stables howled in pain, and Jaime opened the door to drag him into the room, grabbing his neck to silence him.

Brienne jerked from the bed in a flash, her sword unsheathed and pointed straight between the man’s eyes.

Jaime felt enraged that this common idiot had the gall to follow through on this threats. He didn’t want Brienne to know what the man was planning, but he thought she’d figure it out regardless.

“Tell me why she shouldn’t kill you where you stand?” he growled, loosening his grip on the man’s neck just enough.

The man sputtered. “Only…wanted…”

“Yes? Speak up.”

“Wanted a…wine. That’s all.”

The man was a coward as well as a brute. “Stab him,” he said casually.

“Bolton’s men are sworn to King Robb. I’m sure this man regrets his actions and can be sent on his way.” Brienne’s voice was stiff.

Perhaps she feared the others at the inn would retaliate if they harmed one of their own. They might be able to fend off a few, but surely not more than that, and he didn’t particularly want another injury to deal with.

He dropped his hand. “Fine. Scat.”

The man clutched his throat and spat on the floor. “Big bitch.”

Jaime took the blade of Brienne’s outstretched sword between his fingers and glided it along the man’s forehead. A delicate red line opened, trickling blood into the man’s eyes.

“I’ll kill you for that, bastard,” the man sputtered, though he had no blade.

Jaime stepped back, glancing at Brienne who flashed him an exasperated look. He smiled widely. He still hugged her dagger in the crook of his bad arm, and he stepped to the boar’s head on the wall, reaching up to slice off the snout. Brienne’s sword kept the assailant from leaving, and Jaime shoved the hairy snout into his mouth, slamming the man back against the door.

His good arm wasn’t feeling so good anymore, but the adrenaline surging through him felt wonderful. “I heard you like pork.”

The man lurched toward the hall, choking on the snout, but Brienne quickly knocked him on the head with the hilt of her sword. Once she’d caught him and set him unceremoniously in a corner, she closed the door and wrenched her dagger from Jaime’s hand.

“What were you thinking?” She looked furious, but there was certain glint in her eye that told him she enjoyed the confrontation, too.

“He threatened you.”

“What?”

“In the stable. He said he’d come...” Jaime shrugged as if that explained everything. It should have.

She glared. “You neglected to tell me and simply waited for him to intrude? You are a fool.”

“Possibly.”

“What did he say?” Her voice grew instantly softer, hesitant as if she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer.

And he didn’t want to recount the man’s vile words. “Nothing important.”

“No matter. It’s always the same, anyhow.” She turned to gather the cloaks and his bag, shoving them at him, and then she re-rolled her mat.

“Are we leaving?” he asked in surprise.

“Of course we’re leaving. There are ten more of Bolton’s men here, and they will certainly want payment for their brother’s blood.”

“It’s just a scratch!” He chuckled, relishing in the sight of the desiccated snout in the man’s mouth.

“Blood all the same.” She stood and moved too close to him, her face so near he could see the lines on her lips. “Did you think he would be the first to make cruel japes at me? You cannot fend them all off, for it would be an army.”

He pitied her. What cruelty she had faced if she could so easily dismiss one man’s obscenities like that. “I’m sorry,” he said, for many reasons.

The moonlight lightened the blue of her eyes to silver as she stared for a moment, then she donned her cloak and moved quickly out the door. Once they’d succeeded in getting to the stables unseen, saddled their horses, and rode off into the darkness, he had to break the silence.

“No more inns,” he said.

She let him ride beside her this time. “Yes, no more inns.” 

 

* * *

"I told you not to whistle.” Brienne turned in her saddle to glare as she so often did.

“I’m bored.” Jaime kept whistling a jazzy tune he’d learned on the radio when he was recovering in the hospital.

“If a band of outlaws hears you, you’ll soon stop being bored.”

At that point, Jaime might have welcomed an attack, just to relieve the monotony. They’d ridden for days, camping in tiny groves off the road. He’d given up the idea of escape for the time being, knowing he’d have little chance of making it back to Winterfell on his own. The howls of wolves and threat of violent men everywhere couldn’t be ignored as genuine threats despite his will. He could only hope to bargain with this Lady Catelyn. And there was definitely a part of him that wanted to know whatever secrets Brienne held about Ser Jaime. His self-imposed quest for answers in his own time had not gone away. _Why not learn those answers here?_

“I’m bored and hungry.” His stomach complained loudly as reinforcement.

“We’ll soon be at Moat Cailin. King Robb’s men will house us.”

“Spiffing,” he muttered.

More silence, but she finally broke it. “Why have you not tried to flee?”

He’d been waiting for that, not knowing how to reply. The sound of thundering hooves reverberating down the dirt road ensured that he wouldn’t have to. Brienne jerked her horse to a sudden stop and glanced back.

“Off the road.” She spoke only loud enough for the wind to carry her words towards Jaime. “Now!”

Jaime cursed his missing hand as he struggled to control the horse during the sudden directional change, lurching in the saddle as the snorting beast stepped from the crushed dirt into the tree line. He ducked to avoid snapping branches, moving into darkness as he listened for the approaching horde. He heard nothing, and it took him a moment to understand that this meant Brienne wasn’t following him either.

He could ride away, at last, and make a loop through the forest to come out further north toward Winterfell. He could do it before Brienne could stop him. Still, the group he hid from _was_ heading north, and he’d just run into them again once he came out of the trees. Though he didn’t know what Ser Jaime had done in this time, there wasn’t a lot of love for his hallowed ancestor in the north. Brienne was right to keep him hidden.

Jaime dismounted, nearly falling on his ass as his foot caught in the stirrup. He looped the reins around a branch and tugged, hoping the horse would stay put without a proper knot. Yet another thing he could no longer accomplish. Memories of the war were things he buried with all his energy, but now he purposely recalled how he’d learned to move silently, how he could creep through the villages and grasses of Essos without a soul knowing he lingered there. He wasn’t silent now, having lost much of his former skill, but his steps were quiet enough to bring him back to the tree line unnoticed.

At least a dozen men perched on restless horses as they circled Brienne. She sat tall in her saddle with a defiant scowl poisoning her already unpleasant features. Poor girl. Jaime watched as the clear leader of the group spoke to Brienne. They didn’t seem to threaten her, or even question the startling sight of a woman greeting them on the road.

They knew who she was, Jaime realized. He scanned the group, spotting a lowered banner next to a horse’s heaving side, and it had the head of a wolf on it. A mythical direwolf, the banner of Winterfell. Stark men, then, so they posed no threat to Brienne and probably every threat to him. He took a step back to retreat, but a strange, choking noise pierced the air, and his eyes found Brienne again.

She no longer sat tall. She no longer scowled. Her body slowly crumpled into itself. For a moment, Jaime tensed as he thought she’d been attacked, stabbed in the gut as she curled around the weapon, but no. Her brilliant blue eyes glowed and seemed as wide as any eyes ever had. Her lips twisted not in anger but in pain. The soldier grew as restless as his horse, clearly uncomfortable, but the other men…some were stiff, some nervous, and some had eyes just like Brienne’s, veiled by a film of water. There was an almost-tangible sense of anguish pouring out of Brienne.

He waited there in the trees. The soldier who’d spoken to Brienne pulled a scroll from beneath his armor, handing it to her and tucking it under her reins when she failed to take it. He smiled a smile of consolation that meant nothing. The news he’d brought was too much for that sort of pitiable attempt. Finally, the men rode on, leaving Brienne to herself as they glanced back until vanishing down the road north.

And he waited in the trees. Brienne’s horse was a well-bred creature and knew when to remain still. They formed a slumped portrait in silhouette, there in the middle of the road as snow fell to their shoulders and froze the tears rolling off Brienne’s shaking hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to Mikki for fixing this up and making sure my amateur knowledge of canon doesn't cause stupid issues!


	6. Chapter 6

 

Jaime didn’t know how long he stood still under the black tent of his cloak. He didn’t know how long Brienne remained in shock in her saddle, legs clinging to the sides of her horse. Long enough for the threat of night to creep upon them, purple tentacles grasping the eastern sky. Long enough that his already-empty stomach cramped in rebellion. He snapped a twig on purpose. She didn’t move an inch.

Judging by the nights they’d camped, the wolves would soon be out to hunt, and Jaime really didn’t want to be caught in the middle of a pack. He reluctantly abandoned his vigil by the road and retrieved his horse. It snorted foul-smelling, warm air in his face.

“There, there, mate. I won’t let the grumpkins eat you.” He patted the horse’s nose.

He led it back to the road where it was fully dusk, and still Brienne sat unmoving. He’d had enough, a burning curiosity to blame for his disruption as much as his hatred of the quiet.

“Wench!” he nearly shouted, hoping she’d hate it enough to scowl.

She didn’t.

“Really, you’ve got to speak soon. Or have some water. Or take a piss. Get off the damn horse.”

Her left hand clenched the reins tighter, but that was all. She seemed to have welded herself to the saddle with no intention of leaving it, and Jaime felt too small standing below her. He placed his foot in his horse’s stirrup and made it onto the beast’s back without much trouble. It had taken days to get there, but he could do it one-handed now.

Even his horse seemed to sense the strange atmosphere lurking around them and didn’t complain as Jaime walked it to stand beside Brienne’s bay. If he reached out his stump, it would brush her shoulder.

“You may leave now,” she said, her voice carefully modulated.

That was certainly not what Jaime expected to hear. Resignation laced her words and despair clung to her. This madness was over already? If he rode north now and returned to Winterfell, there would be no point to his journey. He hated the idea even though his only desire was to return home, to Cersei. He was surprised to realize that he’d accepted what had happened, that he expected to earn his return through trial and tests of willpower. This was anticlimactic.

And it didn’t explain Brienne’s pain. He at least wanted to know what caused it.

“You abandon me easily, wench,” he accused, hoping to anger her into confession.

She tilted her face up into the falling snow. “You are not Ser Jaime Lannister.”

He sneered, though he wasn’t sure why. “And you wouldn’t abandon him. Of course not.”

Her eyes blazed under frosted lashes. “I do not abandon you. I set you free.”

“To make my own way north? To fend off packs of hungry wolves and troops of men?” He waved his stump very near her face. “I have one hand, woman. How well do you think I’d fare?”

He hadn’t intended to say that. It slipped out without permission, and he was dismayed to realize that he was genuinely afraid of being on his own in this place. His words were true, though mortifying. Perhaps that was why he’d stuck with this giant wench instead of escaping, because he’d known inside he wouldn’t make it.

He thought she’d laugh at him, or joke. Instead, her features turned to stone. “If you are at all like Ser Jaime, you’ll find a way. I want nothing more to do with Lannisters.”

She spit the name as if it were a toxin, and clear determination transformed her expression from agony to new purpose. Jaime had seen that look before, in soldiers and enemies. No more goading now, no more jesting.

“Brienne, what’s happened?”

She couldn’t maintain her stoicism. A watery sheen covered her blue eyes, and her lips compressed into a thin line. “Lady Catelyn and King Robb are dead.”

So that was it. The woman Brienne was pledged to was gone, and with her, any use Brienne might have for him. Just a simple formula in the end.

“I see.”

“Do you?” she demanded. “They have been murdered in violation of guest right, in violation of all that is good and honorable. There is nothing left of the Stark line beyond the two young girls I was entrusted to retrieve. I have failed.”

“How have you failed when it wasn’t your fault?” His tone was thorny and unforgiving. She didn’t need pity.

“I trusted you! Did you know at Harrenhal? Did you know of this?” she cried, her rumbling voice not that of a warrior but of a woman betrayed. It sank into his gut like a knife.

His words were nearly whispers. “I don’t understand.”

She peered at him with accusing eyes, and as he let her silently hate him, she adopted a magnificent sneer. “Of course you do not. Forgive me for my lapse, _Lannister_. I failed for a moment to recall who you are.” Brienne turned away, towards the south.

He had seen how much she resented him, maybe wanted to blame him despite the impossibility. “You think I had something to do with this? I’ve been with you since you found me in the wood.”

“Not you.”

That was all, but Jaime read heard what she’d left unsaid. Not him, the other.

“Ser Jaime, then?” He’d abruptly had enough of ignorance. “Tell me how you knew him? Tell me how you think he contributed to this murder? If you do, because I see your face right now, and I don’t think you really believe that at all.”

She seemed to speak almost to herself. “The Freys planned it, for a long time, but they could not enact such a massacre alone. It was the Lannisters. Your family. You…Ser Jaime said he was never alone with Bolton. I was there each time, but he could have lied. It could have been at Harrenhal, or on the road to King’s Landing before…” she trailed off, looking away.

“Before what?” he pushed, not willing to let her clam up now.

“Before he came back.”  She still didn’t meet his eyes.

There was much unsaid yet again, but her cheeks went pale and gray, and he stopped pushing. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of his guilt. I don’t think it’s working.”

“I have no doubt of the Freys’ guilt. Or the Lannisters’.” She steeled her shoulders and her fingers on the reins.

Jaime didn’t understand half of what had happened, but it was clear that Brienne felt lost at the moment. “What will you do? Where will you go?” Maybe he could persuade her to come with him. He’d need someone to kill rabbits for supper.

There was that look for the second time. He could only see her profile, but there was no doubt that she wore the look of someone bent on destruction, for others and for herself. He’d seen it so often worn by the men in his company. When they’d been cornered in a village full of enemies, there was a pattern that nearly always happened.

Fight bravely, kill the enemy, shout like hellbent warriors. A soldier would fall, at that moment the bravest man any of them had ever known, a beloved friend even if they’d only met a day before. He would fall and he would die in someone’s arms. There would be words and curses. Then another soldier would feel it most, probably because of hunger or longing for home. He would stand up to make himself a target, and he would take a grenade or a rifle in his hand and would charge through the defenses to the enemy to take revenge for the fallen. He’d take some of them out, startling them with his sudden chaos. He’d kill some, and then he’d be hit or blown up, and he would fall and die with a smile on his face.

That was the look. She wore it now, exactly as Jaime remembered, and he knew exactly what she intended to do.

“There is no reason for you to die, Brienne,” he said as forcefully as he could, almost a plea.

“There was no reason for Lady Catelyn to die.”

She glanced at him once with that terrifying look, and she kicked her heels into her horse’s flesh. She was a streak of black and gray before he could try to stop her.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.

The road was so straight that he could watch her flee south, could probably keep sight of her for a mile. There was nothing else to do.

So he kicked his horse just as she had and bent over the saddle’s pommel, wrapping his useless arm around it and clutching the reins so hard his fingers grew raw from the rough leather. He’d never catch her. He’d have to make such a noise that she wouldn’t be able to surprise anyone, and hopefully she’d stop once she realized he planned on causing hell.

He’d never ridden that fast. His bones jostled under his muscles each time the horse’s spine extended beneath the saddle, and he had to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from rattling. He felt suddenly nauseated. He kept going, kicking the snarling beast to push itself more than it could bear in the biting cold. Faster, faster.

He began to gain on her. She was heavier than him, and her horse was heavier than his to match. Maybe he could catch her after all. There was nothing but the sound of thunder swirling around him with each stride of his horse, and his body jolted from the impact. Snow was kicked up by Brienne’s mount, worse than a lorry in the winter, and he could barely see beyond the artificial flurries. He couldn’t even get enough air into his lungs to shout.

This was a fool’s plan, he knew. He expected to roll off the horse any second and be left for dead in the snow. Then Brienne’s horse skidded to a halt and reared back with a terrified whinny. Jaime yanked his reins back in time to avoid the same fate, watching as Brienne barely kept to her saddle. He thought she’d slip off the back, but she was skilled enough to compensate. Her horse stomped for a few moments before succumbing to its exhaustion and letting its head fall to graze the frozen road.

There was a fallen tree. That must have been the snap he’d heard only a minute before. The jagged trunk formed fresh knives of bark on one side, and there was no snow on its dark surface yet. Brienne looked up at him finally, her eyes full of panic.

He didn’t know why until he watched her scan the tree and the forest on both sides, abruptly turning her now-disgruntled horse to the most promising pathway. She intended to go on then, despite his presence. She’d get herself murdered in a second if she showed her face anywhere near the location of Lady Catelyn’s death.

He forced his horse into a walk and came up beside her. She couldn’t move faster on her way into the forest.

“Stop this, Brienne. Just listen to me for a moment.”

She didn’t reply, recklessly pushing through undergrowth.

“Stop it!” he demanded as the words echoed over the road.

She guided her horse into the first line of trees. Bloody fool. She was beyond sense and lost in grief. He knew the feeling all too well. He ignored his horse’s protest as he again matched her pace, and they burst side by side into the wood, barely fitting between trunks.

“I told you to leave!” she shouted, kicking him in the shin.

“I told you not to!”

Jaime glared at her as he recklessly reached his hand over to yank her reins. She slapped him away, but he jerked his right leg free of the tight space between their horses and slammed his knee into her thigh. She elbowed him in the ribs, but since he watched her so closely, he could tell when her eyes flickered to his stump and purposefully avoided hitting it. She wouldn’t kill him, or even harm him too much. He was sure of it then.

That gave him the freedom to really stop her. He glanced ahead to make sure there wouldn’t be an inconvenient branch to smack him in the head, then distracted her by yanking the reins again, and when her hands were occupied trying to regain them, he threw his body into hers and pushed her off the horse. He fell with her onto the carpet of dirt and snow, and immediately rolled them away so the horses wouldn’t trample them, but she’d already shaken off her shock, sputtering as she decided which insult to hurl at him.

“What’s the matter?” He grinned from beside her. “Can’t make yourself hit me?”

Her expression was so snide it could been borrowed from him. She was quick as a cat in grabbing a small branch and swinging it into his side. It stung like a whip. She regained her feet almost instantly, making Jaime scan the length of leg and over her body, finally settling on her face. He couldn’t let her get away now. He swung his feet to catch her behind the knees, and she fell heavily onto her palms. He shouldered her over and grabbed the edge of her cloak to tangle her hands beneath.

Not fast enough. She pushed him back and made to straddle him, to pin him down until she could get a better hold on his rebellious hand, but he anticipated her as if they’d fought before. The forest floor chilled his back like ice, but she was startlingly warm as she hovered over him. Her glaringly pale skin formed a jarring backdrop to a paint-spatter of freckles. He wanted to accuse her of being a peroxide blonde to hide ginger coloring, but she wouldn’t get the joke.

His momentary stillness seemed to have lulled her into false confidence, and he caught her off guard as he pushed her over on her side.

“Move away!” she commanded as he wrapped one leg around her to keep her from kicking him.

He pulled her flush against him with his leg. Her nails caught on his neck. The pain of it felt almost good, the scratches focusing him on combat as he strained to overpower her. He might only have one hand, but there was nothing wrong with the rest of him, his blood heating from the fight. His commanding officer has once called his legs pistons, because his muscles were so strong.

“Not today, wench,” he muttered.

He copied what she had tried to do, pushing her onto her back and straddling her. She lay trapped beneath him, his knees pinning her arms to the ground. He grabbed her hair so she couldn’t turn her face away. He couldn’t quite tell how much she struggled, whether he was really stronger than her or if she were just exhausted and giving up, but at least for that instant he had won.

A surge of victory adrenaline flooded his body, the addictive feeling of beating someone that he knew so well, though he’d never fought a woman. It was ridiculous really. She might not look like the starlets sent from Westeros to entertain the troops during the war, but she was a woman nonetheless. It wasn’t right to fight her like this, but he’d do it again. He almost liked it.

His fingers tangled in her limp, blonde strands, his forearm resting against a small round breast and sweat-heated skin. Those ridiculous blue eyes were forced to stare straight at him, making him uncomfortable for pinning a woman to the ground in anger rather than lust. He smiled at the thought. She was flushed from exertion, and her chest heaved as she sucked in air. She looked as if they’d been fucking instead fighting.

He bent close and repeated something he’d once told another soldier, the only one he’d stopped from blowing himself up.

“There is no honor in a senseless death.”

He felt the fight go out of her body, the tension in her muscles replaced by weariness. Her hands weakly pushed against his knees, and he slid back enough to free them, his legs grazing the heat of her thighs. He waited for her to shove him completely off, but she left one hand to rest over her heart and brought the other to settle over his fingers, prying them from her hair.

“That is why I must go.” She was quiet and pleading.

He realized how his words, meant to bring some sense to the situation, could be misconstrued. She’d taken them to mean that Lady Catelyn had died without honor. He didn’t care if she had. A woman like Brienne, hells a _man_ like her, would only care about restoring that honor. She’d said she had pledged to find Lady Catelyn’s daughters, and that they were the only Starks left. If that were so, perhaps they would be enough to stop Brienne from getting herself killed.

“What of her daughters then?”

Her face clouded. He’d found the key.

“Who will protect them if their family is dead?” Jaime watched the film of water return to Brienne’s eyes. “This is your choice. Vengeance or children. I don’t believe you’re a fool. You know you can’t have them both.”

He waited a long while for her respond, and it was a thin, womanly reply.

“That is not fair.”

“Truth is often unfair.”

She brought her hands to cover her eyes, pushing her palms into the sockets as if to press the weakness from them. Her thick lips contorted. Tears ran between her freckles from under her hands.

“You are not fair,” she whispered, suddenly using her strength to turn on one side and push him off.

He slumped on the cold ground with his leg still over hers. Somehow, he knew what she meant. He wasn’t real. It was a bothersome thing to comprehend, and he said nothing, instead rising to his feet grumbling at the loss of her warmth when the chill air hit him. The horses were snorting a few yards away, confused but calm enough. He didn’t really know what they ate, but Brienne had let them forage at night in the woods, so it seemed safe enough to leave them be. He gathered branches from under large boughs so they’d be at least a bit dry in case Brienne managed to start a fire at some point. This place would have to work as a camp for the night.

Brienne’s bedroll was tangled in the saddle. He yanked it free and stretched it out next to her as he set some rabbit she’d smoked close to her hand along with the flask of water. Night fully blanketed them before Brienne sat up and used a flint to strike a tiny flame before she moved to sit on the bedroll. Her cloak was soaked from the snow. She drank and chewed some meat. She left to piss, in the opposite direction to the horses, and Jaime thought this was an unspoken assurance.

He stoked the fire, and when she returned, she stretched on the bedroll with no cover over her. Jaime sighed. This woman was absurd. Her pain was not his problem. Lady Catelyn’s death, or daughters, or stupid ability to garner the loyalty of another pigheaded woman were not his problems.

Brienne had left a sliver of space on the narrow bedroll. He wouldn’t complain. This night was the coldest yet, and he lay down with his back to hers and his cloak covering them both. He pushed back to see what she’d do, if she would cringe from the very idea of him and his difference from the Ser Jaime she knew. Yes, it still bothered him. He knew he wasn’t Ser Jaime. Obviously. But he _was_ Jaime Lannister. He was himself with a birth and life of his own, and none of this was his fault.

His spine fit to hers, his vertebrae nestling between hers strangely. Had she shared this thin excuse for a bed with Ser Jaime? He was suddenly aware how close he was to her, with bodies touching from shoulder to thigh, thinking a cold perch by the fire might have been a better idea after all. He’d never slept this way with anyone, not even Cersei who hadn’t let him stay with her since they were children.

He almost got up. Almost. Brienne unsettled him with her knowledge and her judgment. He thought the novelty of his presence in this world was wearing off, the shock of it sinking in to finally let him feel fear. Maybe that was why he didn’t move away from the warmth of the giant woman.

He whispered into the darkness over the rustling wind. “If you leave me in the night, I’ll die out here.”

She waited long minutes until he questioned whether she was awake. “I know.”

It was all the assurance he’d get, he knew. He pushed further back. Her body was solid and warm. She wouldn’t leave him to die. He smiled to himself because he’d succeeded in defusing her blind vengeance, however reluctantly she gave it up. His legs stretched out, easing the tension in his calves, and still they weren’t as long as hers. She really did have the longest legs. And the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. The tip of his nose felt icy, so he buried it under the edge of the cloak despite the scent of his own sweat pervading the close air there.

Everything was so damn cold. The only heat in the world seemed to come from behind him, far more comforting than the meager fire on her other side. That was all he wanted, not to be cold. He pushed back more, giving up any pretense that he didn’t want to be on the thin straw-stuffed mat. They were so close to the same height that his backside pressed against hers exactly. She shouldn’t be soft, he thought. She was built like a tank, all hard edges and tension, yet she was soft.  

He’d almost fallen asleep, his eyelids heavy as stiff lashes stuck to his cheeks, when she matched his former whisper. She was the one to push against him now.

“You are not him, but I do not think many would see that. If you help me regain the Stark girls and take them to safety, I will find you the Red Woman.”

The woman she’d mentioned before...the way Brienne spoke of this woman suggested suspicion and disdain, yet she offered him a way out anyway. It seemed the Stranger’s bargain. The chances that no one, particularly the Lannisters, would see him as false were slim to none. The chances that he could overcome that obstacle, find two children in an unknown world, and keep them safe with only the help of a giant, conspicuous wench, were less than that. The chances he would die in the process were extraordinarily high.

Yet, there was no choice. He’d seen that he could not survive this world alone, not for a long time during which he would have to adapt and learn the ways of these people, and maybe not even then. This Red Woman may not even possess the same impossible abilities as the Red Men from his day, but Jaime felt in his gut that Brienne’s knowledge was the best lead he was liable to find. If he had any hope of getting home before he was an old man, this was the way.

“I accept your bargain, wench. And gods help any who stand in our way, because I can be a jackass when I want something.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

Brienne barely spoke, barely looked at him for the entire day. He let her stew in her grief on the way to White Harbor where they’d catch a ship to King’s Landing. The Stark forces would be flooding all the roads to the capitol, so she’d decided they should take passage on a ship. It seemed a good plan, so he hadn’t argued. They’d arrive faster and with less chance of being recognized, provided they could make it to a ship unnoticed. The long ride had begun before dawn turned to day, and it was nearly dusk yet again.

Jaime occupied himself by fending off images from his dream. The cold and the lack of sufficient food must have twisted his mind in the night, creating vivid pictures of war and of Cersei. Since he’d lost his hand, his dreams always gave it back to him. Sometimes it would just be there, and sometime he’d grow it as he watched, like a starfish. But this time, in his dream, he had his stump and was running through village after village. Tall Essosi grasses cut his skin like razors. Dark forests where wolves bit at his ankles. And no one heard his cries for help.

He’d woken with his face still pressed against warmth, and there was an insistent pressure in his groin. It had been pleasant and welcoming until he’d realized he rested half on Brienne, his cheek on her shoulder, his nose pushing against her neck, his hips pressed into her side. Her eyes had snapped open just as he backed away, and he didn’t think she’d noticed his standing Roger. He was so starved for Cersei that his body seemed to find its own substitute in sleep.

He shifted in his saddle from the embarrassment of near-discovery. His body wasn’t betraying his wishes, he convinced himself. He was just behaving like a soldier returned from war who had refrained from fucking for five years and hadn’t yet caught up. Cersei had been reluctant when he’d returned, not letting him touch her for almost two weeks. She’d been afraid to hurt him since he was injured, he assumed. Even when she relented, she didn’t show him the same passion she once had. He knew he had failed to keep himself whole for her, and now, he’d be away too long again. He stared at Brienne’s tangled blonde hair.

He’d been so focused on stopping her from running a suicide mission that he hadn’t thought about the terms of their bargain and the consequences of accepting it so quickly. He was going to the capitol. The farther he moved from Winterfell, the longer it would take to get back, and he hadn’t realized just how vast Westeros would be without the benefit of engines.

Still, a bargain was a bargain, and he knew he’d never find another person in this time who would believe him about the Red Men and the tree. This fool’s errand would take however long it took. Time was apparently relative, after all, he thought, with enough amusement to make him smile.

Brienne glanced back at him with parted lips, as if about to say something, but she closed them when their eyes met. He smiled even wider at the ever-so-serious furrow that seemed to take shape on her brow whenever she looked at him for too long.

“What? Are my good looks blinding you?”

He didn’t catch what she muttered once she’d turned back around, but then she raised her voice. “We must make camp. It’s half a day’s ride to White Harbor from here, too far to push before nightfall.”

He sighed at the prospect of sleeping in the cold forest again. “But tomorrow we’ll have a bunk on a ship. It couldn’t be more welcome.”

“If we are lucky. We might sleep on deck if there are no cabins to hire.” She almost sounded entertained by his potential discomfort, though her face was hidden.

“Then we stay in White Harbor until a decent ship appears. My back needs a mattress.”

“Such a _Lannister_ with your need for soft feathers. You have survived worse than the lack of a comfortable bed.” She said it conversationally, as if it were nothing of note.

He felt his body tense with memories of war and flashes of his hand being amputated. “Yes. I have.”

Her glance this time was as steady and gentle as her voice. “Tell me how it was taken from you.”

Jaime saw that this was a serious matter to her. She hadn’t asked anything about his life, his _real_ life, though she clearly had a thousand questions floating in her eyes every time they sat before a fire. He was surprised that he wanted to tell her. No one had asked him back home, not a single soul. They were all too scarred and exhausted by war to find the energy to care. Even Cersei hadn’t asked, though he’d tried to tell her before she’d said the tale had grown too disgusting to stand.

He wanted to tell Brienne, but how could he when there were tanks and bombs and machine guns? He tightened his lips, because for once he had no words. She nodded. It was brief and sharp before she faced forward and brought her horse to a stop near a path leading into the forest.

He followed; they unpacked; she built a fire. Routine. He liked routine, and even though nightmares were still his constant companions, at least he didn’t have to shut his eyes against the glare of exploding bombs. And he wanted to tell her, somehow.

She had her thick lips wrapped around a piece of dried rabbit, but she let it slip back between her fingers when he began speaking, his voice haunted by the memory.

“I was in a village with a company of my men. We’d been sent to escort a defector, a scientist…” He caught the quick flash in her gaze that meant he’d said something she didn’t understand. It happened frequently. “A maester of sorts, I suppose. We’d found him and were on the way out when the village was attacked. There was…there were canons all around, exploding like wildfire. My men fought well, but many died. I led the maester down a street to where our convoy was ready to get us out.”

He needed breath and space, and he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to run from her firelit blue eyes or somehow sink into them. They seemed like pools of peaceful water. She let him be as long as he wanted.

“There was an enemy who threw an explosive. It was behind us. The maester trailed me since I was trying to shield him as we made our way out, and I didn’t hear them creep up on us. It was over so quickly.” He whispered then, too caught up in memory to stop the shaking in his voice. “The maester died at once. His body ripped apart before I even knew to protect him, but if I’d heard the enemy there on the street, I’d be dead now. The explosion caught me on my right side. I’ve got burns and scars, and my hand was exposed gripping my…weapon. There was nothing to protect it. All I thought was that I didn’t want to die and that maybe all I wanted was to die. I didn’t know there was such pain.”

He turned his gaze to his bandaged stump. Six weeks now, since the grenade took his hand, and four since the war had ended and he’d been sent back to King’s Landing. If only the bloody thing had found the time to be done just two weeks before. It seemed both yesterday and a lifetime ago. He’d had to have the gnarled flesh reopened twice because of localized infection. At least the oozing had finally stopped, and he knew it was in part because of Brienne’s nightly care. Even missing it the previous night because of her grief, the wound felt fine. It didn’t hurt.

He grinned without realizing it, and then he didn’t want to stop. It didn’t hurt.

“What is it?” Brienne asked in such a gentle voice he almost hated it for its hint of pity.

But finally, finally it didn’t hurt, and he couldn’t care about how weak he looked. He faced her. “I don’t feel pain there. It’s taken so long.”

She only met his gaze for a split second, and then she stared at his stump. “It is a terrible loss, but you are not dead. There is always something to be thankful for.”

“I suppose so. I was a crack shot, too. I miss that hand.” He smirked, but there was no humor behind it.

She ignored yet another reference she clearly didn’t understand and sucked in breath, still staring with a painful sort of vacancy. “You are not that hand.”

“Hmm, _more than his right hand_. That should be on my tombstone.”

She rolled her eyes, breaking the tension for them both. “You speak such nonsense.”

“I know.” His gaze shifted to the gleaming steel resting beside her outstretched legs, a sudden impulse focusing his memory-addled thoughts. “If I’m to help you with any effectiveness, I’ll need to know how to hold that, even if it’s just for show. Don’t you think?”

She seemed startled. “You’ve never held sword?”

He’d forgotten how integral that sort of thing would be to men like him in this time. “Well, I’ve held a few ceremonial swords, and banged about as a child with sticks, but otherwise no. I’m a blank page.”

There was her furrow. “I suppose you might still be convincing since it will only be your left hand that grips a pommel, but there is little time to practice.”

“Then I should start.”

“No.” She shook her head tiredly. “We are both too weary this night. There will be weeks on the ship with not much else to occupy the time.”

“Weeks? What?” He couldn’t have heard that right, yet he knew based on distance and the types of ships in this time that she told the truth.

“Two weeks.” There was an unspoken _obviously_ attached.

He smirked despite himself, allowing a certain resignation. “Two weeks in the cabin of a ship alone with you. A soldier’s dream come true.”

 

* * *

Gray stone walls drew closer and closer, surrounding White Harbor. He’d never been there, at least the version from his time, but he’d seen photographs and a newsreel once of a passenger ship being built in the docks. It had looked to be a rough place, even from the distance of miles as the road overlooked the city fires.

They approached the outskirts warily. Jaime copied Brienne’s motion of pulling her hood close over her head to shield her face. There was a stream of wagons and thick-muscled oxen crowding the passage through the city wall, and they merged, slowing to a near-crawl until the gloom of the stone gave way again to murky gray light.

“The harbor seems close. We will follow the shore to the ships.”

She trotted on, forcing lingering wastrels out of the way. Soon, the masts of tall vessels flooded the view, and they broke from the city proper onto a path that ran next to the water. It was a grey evening, with dark clouds hovering in the sky, but there was a wild beauty to this place as water spit against jagged rock and rocking ships lulled the eyes into tranquility.

“Stay close,” Brienne warned, her voice lower now they were away from the crowd.

“As if I’d wander,” he muttered, eying groups of drunken sailors.

She dismounted once she spotted a stable near the main dock, a truly horrifying inn attached to it. The Lazy Eel according to a sign precariously swinging on a chain. Jaime gingerly swung his leg over the saddle and dropped, taking care to remember how to grip the pommel with his good hand and wrap his bad around the reins so he wouldn’t fall in the muck.

“The horses cannot accompany us,” Brienne reminded, as much to herself as to him, he knew. He was oddly reluctant to part with the beasts as well.

He glanced at the disgusting stables and feared for the horses’ health. “Maybe there’s a better place to leave them further on.”

“We cannot take the time to find one.” She stroked her mount’s smooth side. “They are fine rides. They will be cared for if only for the promise of coin, though I’m sorry to sell what is not mine.”

Jaime had forgotten they rode mounts of Winterfell. He supposed the horses belonged to the Stark girls now, but they’d never make a claim. “It’s not stealing if that worries you.”

She said nothing as she unstrapped her belongings and his bag. She never let him carry it himself, and he hadn’t yet asked why. She led both beasts to a man perched on a barrel outside the stables.

His stained teeth gleamed as he smiled up at them. “Lookin’ to stay at the inn? I’ve got space for yer beauties, I do.”

“I am looking to sell. Can you take them?” Brienne stood tall and threatening, daring the man to swindle her.

“They’re worth ten dragons. I’ll give ya three.”

“They are worth twenty. Each.” Brienne snarled.

The man’s chuckle echoed through the open stable door. “Not here when few have coin to buy ‘em.”

Jaime felt the need to interrupt though he knew nothing about this trade. She somehow knew he was about to speak, maybe by the sharp inhalation he made, and she elbowed him without even looking.

“Five each. I will not settle for less.”

“Right then. Five each and a friendly warning…stay out o’ the Leaky Eel. Drink’s so foul it’ll make ya shit yer own tongue.” The man winked dramatically and shoved a hand somewhere in his trousers to find two golden coins.

Brienne caught them as they were tossed, and Jaime wished for the thousandth time he had a bar of soap, this time for her.

She began to walk away, then glanced over her shoulder at the man. “Any chance you know where the ships are heading today?”

Jaime knew it was a purposeful stance to suggest casualness.

“Can’t say as I _know_ , but there’s always one out to Braavos and to Gulltown. Probably to Pentos. But if ya want King’s Landing, that mess in the Blackwater hasn’t been touched. Can’t get farther than Duskendale or mebbe a bit along the coast if yer not opposed to a fine bribe.”

Was the man speaking of the siege on the Red Keep? Jaime struggled to remember about that and who was involved. King Robert’s brother, but which one…Stannis, he thought. Yes, the brother’s failed attempt to take the city and the throne. He fervently wished the idiot Targaryen queen had produced histories that did not gloss over the many years prior to her conquest. As with his own family’s account, there was little documenting the period beyond journals of the major battles and records of their outcomes. He remembered that Stannis Baratheon had fled to the north after the Blackwater incident and had not returned.

What the closing of the Bay meant for their journey, he couldn’t tell. To her credit, Brienne gave nothing away, to the uncouth man or to himself.

“I thank you. Take care of the horses and they may not bite.”

She pulled her hood even closer over her face and marched confidently away as if she knew exactly where to go. Jaime grinned to himself at the ruse and hoped she was as successful in fooling others about her knowledge.

The crowd grew thicker as they approached the larger docks, all set in rows to accommodate more dinghies and small craft than Jaime had ever seen in one place. A man stood on a stack of crates shouting directions at workers who heaved loads of cargo. Jaime reached out his hand to grip Brienne’s arm so they wouldn’t get separated in the crowd. She obviously saw the wisdom in it since she didn’t slap him away. 

“Can you tell me where to book passage to Duskendale?” she shouted above the noise.

“Secure that crate, ya rotten peckers, or ya’ll pay for the loss!” The man bellowed to a group of sailors.  He turned to them, snarling almost in Brienne’s face. “Ya want King’s Landing, eh? Captain Lanos can get ya closer than Duskendale, but the price’ll be high. Not that vessel, ya pockmarked asses! Ya can find the good captain at the tavern behind the sailcloth merchant, just up the way. Ya bloody piss buckets! Ya pockmarked peckers!”

Brienne turned red and took a step back, glancing quickly at Jaime. Maybe she felt as much a stranger here as he did.

“Right, let’s find this tavern,” he stated.

“Yes, that seems to be the right choice.” She turned away before he could see, but he was sure she rolled her eyes.

They stepped over coils of rope and puddles of unspeakable substances as they pushed up the cobbled street. Jaime inhaled deeply, enjoying the sharpness of the sea air despite an underlying layer of rot. He kept hold of Brienne’s arm the whole way, and they soon spotted a hanging sign with a ship and needle painted on it, the sailcloth merchant. An alley appeared next to the shop.

“This seems to be the way. There is no other visible place behind,” Brienne muttered, clearly reluctant to explore the area.

Jaime stepped ahead of her and peered into the alley. It was cleaner than the dock area, and no prostitutes were visible in the courtyard that opened up ten paces into the alley. A sailor with a mug of ale perched on a bench.

He belched loudly and scanned their cloaked forms. “Ya want a captain? Inside. All the good ones are.”

Jaime nodded as Brienne stepped ahead to enter the tavern. She had to duck her head in the doorway which reaffirmed that she was an inch or so taller than him since his scalp was barely grazed by the wooden lintel.

It was murky darkness inside, with alcoves lit by single candles and a lantern hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the small space. Jaime realized that it looked like the belly of a ship, all dark wood and smears of tar. Maybe the captains didn’t like lighter environments.

A bar maid passed by, balancing numerous mugs of sharp-smelling beer. “Where might we find one Captain Lanos?” Brienne asked as she stepped in front of the girl.

The maid’s smile was full of gaps and brown stains. “Where he always is…just back there with the bucket o’ sour leaf.” Her gaze drifted to Jaime, scanning him from head to toe and pushing her ample breasts in his direction.

Jaime caught Brienne wrinkling her nose once the girl moved on, but she headed toward the back before he could deny that the sweat-caked girl would distract him. The farthest alcove was probably the darkest in the place, though it might have been slightly cleaner. A black-coated man old enough to be Jaime’s father perched on a bench with his elbows on a table and the fingers of his right hand twirling the stem of a leaf between his teeth.

“Captain Lanos?” Brienne’s voice was low and soothing, as if she wanted to dispel any hint of threat they might pose as passengers, best to make a favorable impression.

The man didn’t look up. “Always have been, always will be.”

Brienne slid onto the bench across from the captain, and Jaime did the same.

She lowered her hood. “We are seeking passage to King’s Landing, or as close as we might come. We were told you might help us.”

“You and this fellow here?” The captain finally lifted his gaze to their faces, examining them carefully with suspicion clouding his brown eyes.

Jaime still didn’t lower his hood.

“Yes,” Brienne asserted.

The captain glared as a bit of green dribbled down his chin. “Let me see your face.” He tilted his head towards Jaime.

Jaime could feel dismay radiating from Brienne’s body as she sat close to him, but he saw that Captain Lanos wouldn’t entertain the idea of taking them as passengers before he finished whatever evaluation he felt necessary. Jaime lowered the hood and smiled with closed lips.

“You look like the Drowned God took a fancy to you and kept you at the bottom of the sea for a spell.” The captain grunted between twisting lips.

“I had only the bones of dead sailors for company.” Jaime’s grin was wide and arrogant.

The captain met his grin with a one that matched, though it was tinted green from the chewed leaf and carried an edge. “And who is this lumbering cow of a woman to you, Master Bones?”

Brienne inhaled as she prepared to reply, but Jaime immediately grabbed her hand with his and squeezed. He might not know the nuances of this world, but he could see in a man’s eye when the unsaid was more important that the question posed. Captain Lanos wouldn’t take them if he believed them to be criminals. If this tavern was where the _good_ captains spent their time, there would be standards for any potential passengers, and since Brienne was genuinely a noblewoman, he should make sure the captain understood that.

He cocked an eyebrow and frowned. “I don’t like that tone, Captain. We are respectable travelers seeking warmer temperatures. That’s all.”

The captain eyed the edge of the table where Jaime’s hand still rested over Brienne’s as she subtly tried to tug her fingers free from his. “I’ve got one cabin. Does that suit?”

“My wife and I are used to sharing.” He couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Brienne then, to see her reaction to his outrageous claim.

Her mouth hung open, making her look like an enraged trout. Jaime chuckled to himself as she struggled to cover her dismay, and if the captain noticed, he’d decided their coin was worth ignoring their oddities.

“My ship is the _Summer Lady_. We leave the harbor in two hours’ times, and you’ll have to find young Nim on the main dock by the half-sun flag of orange and blue. I’ll tell him to take the fare before he rows you out.” The captain sucked a new green leaf between his lips.

“Which is?” Brienne prompted after minutes of forced silence.

The captain’s brow raised as if he considered how much they carried with them. “Five dragons. Each.”

Brienne nodded with a slight twist of lips, feigning dismay. “A high price. I can offer four.”

“Oh, I think not, _my lady._ It’ll be five each or no passage, and I guarantee you’ll find no other ship to run you close to King’s Landing. Or ale that isn’t mixed with horse piss from the Leaky Eel.”

Brienne stiffened next to Jaime, radiating some sort of disproportionate anger at the idea. “I suppose five is fair for the trouble in the Bay.”

“Bargain set, then, _Mistress_ Bones. Leave me be now.” He tilted his face toward the table as he had when they’d first approached, and that was that.

Jaime scooted off the bench as Brienne followed, and he thought they might find another place to sit so he could finally fill his stomach with something other than meager portions of small game and hard biscuits. Brienne stepped ahead, straight toward the exit.

“We aren’t staying here until the ship leaves?”

She kept moving and didn’t look back. “We need supplies.”

While she’d certainly know that better than he did, he sensed residual anger in the set of her shoulders. When they were in the courtyard with the not-so-fresh air chasing away the stink of beer, he grabbed her elbow again.

“You’re as changeable as the wind, wench. If this is about the wife joke, don’t be a fuddy duddy.”

She spun to face him, her expression shifting as if she couldn’t decide whether to be angry or bewildered. “More nonsense?”

He caught his error, more words she wouldn’t understand because he didn’t belong here. His momentary light mood evaporated. She was too close now, their faces inches apart, and he stuffed his hand in his pocket beneath the cloak.

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

He stalked off down the alley without knowing their direction; he didn’t want to look at her homely face or judgmental blue eyes only to be reminded of what he’d been forced to leave behind. She followed along behind him, letting off an uncomfortable and probably imaginary heat. He had to stop in the street since he had no clue where to go.

She stood there with near-tangible awkwardness, shifting her weight between her large feet. “It is…fortunate that the price fetched for the horses equals our passage.”

Her voice was low, barely audible, stuttering over the words. Her attempt to placate him was as stiff as her body. He burst out laughing at the ridiculous giant he’d been granted as sidekick in this hostile world, his empty stomach gurgling from the spasms that ran through it. But no, if anything, he was _her_ sidekick, on her mission to accomplish her goal in exchange for a mere clue to fulfill his own wishes. There was nothing to do but laugh about it.

“You mock me.” She stared at him, clearly hurt.

“I mock everything, wench.” He still laughed, but was slowly regaining control.

Then she stepped in his face again, this time stretching to her full height as she glared at him. “Do not call me so. I have warned you before.”

The edges of their cloaks tangled together, her small breasts almost brushing his chest as he continued. “A warning is meaningless if there’s no consequence. What will you do? Kill me for a jest?”

She moved back. “You know I will not, but we made a bargain. I had hoped you would have decency enough to honor it without making a joke of me.”

He pushed forward to bridge the gap she’d created. “You are not a joke, you just can’t take one. You are a stubborn, touchy wench who hears mockery in every phrase.”

“Every phrase is laced with mockery when directed at me.” Her volume had risen just shy of a shout, her face red as a poppy.

Jaime stared straight into her glacial eyes. They expected pity, he realized. They expected disdain and were accustomed to absorbing it. He thought of his time with her on the road from Winterfell. Nearly every person who had seen her and interacted with her had been mocking if not outright hostile. She was right, and he’d given her a fair share of cutting remarks as well. He felt ashamed of it since she’d done nothing but help him the entire time. She’d cared for his wound attentively, never mentioning the smell or sight of mangled flesh. Never mocked him for a worthless cripple. She hadn’t used his wounds against him when they’d fought.  She’d shown him kindness and understood his pain when no one in his own time had. She hadn’t been disgusted by the tale of his loss.

“I’m sorry,” he said with complete sincerity.

She stood there in the close space for several moments, then brushed past him to cross the street, speaking only when the clarity of walking in sea air broke the strange mood. “You need clothing. There should be a shop somewhere nearby.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could leave Kudos to people for whatever reason I bloody feel like it! ALL the Kudos to Mikki for channeling Brienne's brand of patience as she beta'd this thing like four times. 
> 
> Shout-out to AsharaStarfall for including my fic on her Tumblr list! Sorry to be ruining you, darling. It's going to get so much worse...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late, I know. JBweek sucked the life out of me and replaced it with feels. Extra long wordage to make up for it!

 

Jaime’s head pounded and his stomach roiled as he lay on the lumpy bunk in the _Summer Lady’s_ largest passenger cabin, or rather the only one that could hold two passengers. He didn’t want to know how small the other cabins were. Brienne couldn’t even stand upright in the space, and her outstretched arms would nearly touch the walls.

The ship lurched in the storm again, and he couldn’t hold back the meager contents of his stomach. He was not a man with sea legs. His fingers grasped for the piece of cloth Brienne had set next to him to wipe himself. It fell to the floor, and as he rolled to his side to reach for it, a particularly vengeful wave knocked against the ship’s side and tossed him to the wooden planks.

He remained there, groaning with his cheek pressed against the splintery floor with new bruises joining the old. The cabin door burst open, slamming the wall as the ship moved. There was a lantern swinging from a hook in the passage outside, but its light barely filtered past the mass of Brienne’s body.

She set something just inside before darting over, kneeling beside him as she dripped water like a shower. She’d be soaked to the bone if not for her cloak. “Jaime?” She placed a hand on his arm and shook gently.

He choked on bile, gurgling out a weak response. “Never thought I’d die in a pool of my own vomit.”

He could only see her chin from his position, but he thought she might have smiled a bit. “You will not die.”

She hung her cloak on a hook to dry and found the cloth, dipping it a bucket of rainwater kept for washing. It was near-empty now from sloshing with the ship’s movements. Her fingers were gentle as they cleaned him, and fortunately he hadn’t soiled his only shirt, the new rough-spun tunic she’d bought for him in White Harbor.

“I brought something to help.” She pulled him back to the bunk and grabbed a dry fur from a wall hook, piling it around him to keep him upright.

He shook his head weakly when she perched beside him and held a steaming bowl beneath his nose. “Can’t eat.”

“It is herb broth. It will give you strength and keep the sick down.” She lifted a spoonful to his lips.

He tightened them like a petulant child. “Can’t.”

She sighed loudly. “You will eat this. All of it. I did not squander my last silver coin only to have you waste the effort. Eat.”

He let the spoon slip between his lips, glaring at her though the broth tasted good and helped relieve the dryness of his mouth. Another few sips, and he had to admit it really was helping.

“I thought our fare paid for meals,” he mumbled around another spoonful.

She looked only at the bowl cradled in one large hand. “This broth requires more herbs than the cook was willing to give me without coin.”

“You made it yourself?” He was startled since the wench didn’t seem the domestic type.

“Everyone on Tarth knows of it. Too many traders and visiting nobles have weak stomachs at sea.” She spoke very matter-of-fact, her lips twisting down as if he’d insulted her.

“Thank you,” he said, meaning it. He felt much better.

She dipped the spoon into the bowl again, but he stretched his good arm out to stop her.

“Just give me the bowl. I can manage.” He appreciated her effort, but he hated feeling so weak, just like he had after the amputation when a bedraggled nurse fed him oatmeal or egg yolks in warm milk.

He forced his hand to hold the bowl steady enough to drink. Sip after sip, he managed until the broth was gone. She took the bowl back but didn’t move from her place next to him. She’d been a constant presence these last two days in the confines of the cabin. Despite the seasickness, he’d slept because he wasn’t alone, though she’d kept to her bed roll on the floor. He was startled to realize that his night terrors from the war had not been as frequent since he’d…arrived in this time.

She was staring at him. He could feel her gaze almost tangibly, but when he turned to question her, she rose to place the bowl outside the door before barring it to keep it from banging against the wall. If he kept his eyes on her, he felt no dizziness. She didn’t seem to alter her steady stance no matter how much the sea churned, completely at ease in this tumultuous environment.

He’d been lolling on this bunk for days, and now, instead of anger at his weakness or trepidation over the impending arrival in King’s Landing, he simply felt bored. He wanted to talk. During the war, there hadn’t been much _but_ talking between skirmishes. Sitting around a fire, or in a ruined village bar, or in the mess hall of some base…all he did was talk and play cards with his buddies. Since he lost his hand and returned to Westeros, he hadn’t talked. Oh, there’d been niceties and quips, but Cersei hadn’t wanted to hear about the war, and he hadn’t tried very hard to tell her. She couldn’t understand anyway, and he didn’t want to recount the tales of death to his sweet sister.

Instead, he’d listened to her talk about Lannisport and what had happened to the families there. How she missed her silk stockings and refused to draw lines on her legs like some poor girl from town. Brienne would understand about the war, he thought. She’d seen blood and death. He chuckled because one of those deaths was his. Sort of.

“What is it?” she asked, returning to the bunk to wrap another, mostly-dry, fur around her broad shoulders and sit down.

He remembered the pain in her eyes when she spoke of watching Ser Jaime die, and he thought better of admitting his joke. “Just cabin fever, I suppose.”

Her brow furrowed as she placed a large palm on his cheek. “You are not overheated.”

“No, it means…never mind.” He shook his head with a smile, almost missing the warmth of her skin.

She was silent for a moment. “If you are not sick by nightfall, some fresh air would do you good. We can walk on deck. I think the storm is abating.”

“That would be nice. I’ve seen enough of these moldy walls.” He rested against one of those walls and let the silence in, though it disturbed his mind. But what could he tell her that she’d understand?

He rolled his head to face her, thinking he could find some topic of conversation, but there she was staring again with her blue eyes full of questions.

“Say your piece,” he prodded with a smirk, glad for anything to occupy him.

“Where were you at war?” she blurted out, pressing her lips back together immediately.

That was why he couldn’t explain to her, even in vague terms. She already saw too much, saw the holes in his stories. But he wanted to talk.

“Where do you think I was?”

“Essos,” she answered without hesitation.

“And how did you come to that conclusion?”

She lowered her eyes to her hands as they gripped her fur tighter. “Your skin has seen the sun, but there is no war in Dorne. It is the only place in Westeros with sun still hot enough to burn like that, and there has been no word of war there.” Her signature blush bloomed on her cheeks. “And you murmur about razor grass and mare’s milk in your sleep.”

 _Clever wench_ , he thought, hoping that was all he’d given away in the night. “And have you heard of war in Essos?”

She nodded but her eyes held suspicion. “It is rumored that the Stormborn Targaryen girl campaigns there.”

“But you don’t think I was with her?”

“I _know_ you were not.” Her tone was adamant. “You would never again fight for a Targaryen.”

“Ah yes,” he remembered. “ _Kingslayer_. Though I might have needed atonement for that. Perhaps supporting a Dragon would achieve it.”

“Atonement is meant for wrongdoing.”

“I killed a king.”

“ _He_ killed a king, and it was not wrong.” Her face grew red and her eyes narrowed from the strength of her defense. She turned away.

“How do you know this?” Curiosity about Ser Jaime and his relationship to Brienne burned through him. She’d said she knew all his secrets, but he hadn’t really thought about what that meant.

“I will not say.”

He was irritated by this. He thought he deserved answers about Ser Jaime, particularly since he was supposed to step into his ancestor’s life to fulfill his promise to Brienne. How could he do that well enough to deceive others if he didn’t even know the basic truth of Ser Jaime's life?

“Please, Brienne? I must know.”

Her lips were twisted into a grimace, and her eyes blazed. “Do not ask again.”

She wasn’t going to budge. He sighed deeply and knew he must change his tactic if she were ever going to trust him. It was laughable really, that they could trust each other when she was hellsbent on keeping an oath to a dead woman and he couldn’t even say who he really was.

Maybe a hint of truth, though…a harmless story.

“I _was_ in Essos, far away. I led a company of men.” He glanced at her, but she hadn’t thawed. “My second-in-command was this green boy, William Waters. He’d only reached his rank since every man between he and I had been killed. We were sent to defend a village, but the whole thing was a disaster, start to finish. The strategy was wrong, the villagers didn’t want us there. And William kept rushing headlong into the fray. He’d get scraped and knicked, the wounds always just an inch from fatal. He was an idiot.” Jaime smiled at the memory of William’s pug nose and naivety.

“He saved your life and died in the process,” she guessed, still not looking at him.

He laughed outright. It felt like a burden taken from his shoulders to reveal anything about the war. “Not quite. William was clumsy, but he grew smarter. He’d still get injured almost constantly to the point where the other men in the company called him Bloody Bill and placed bets on how many days he had left to live.”

“That is cruel.” She finally faced him, her eyes judgmental.

“That is war. It wasn’t serious, and William himself always bet on the shortest number of days. It was a game, but there wasn’t a one of us who wouldn’t have been gutted by his death.”

“He did not die?” Her eyes went wide with hope for some man she’d never know.

“He didn’t die. He ended up saving just about every man in the company at least once. Nearly everyone died but not good ol’ Billy. One of those injuries did come a bit close though. He lost a leg, and last I heard, he’d married his girl and started breeding. Bought a shop in Highgarden.” Jaime smiled to himself, but it turned into a frown. “I was going to visit him.”

She let him stew for a moment, and he was glad for it. The memory of William felt like a metaphor for all Jaime had lost, but then she gently tapped his arm.

“Why was the strategy wrong? When you failed to defend the village?”

He refocused. Yes, he could talk war like this. It was nearly all he knew anymore. “Our orders were to enter the village in the night, ensure no enemies hid there, and set up a perimeter to prevent attack. We waited one night until the moon waned and made it into the village, but we were told to expect two or three enemy fighters visiting family there. Instead, there were two companies, and we were outnumbered. They pushed up back. We lost six men.”

The frost she’d adopted before seemed to have dissipated as he told his stories, and now she was focused entirely on him. “How many men did you have?”

“Sixteen, counting myself.”

“And you did not send in scouts first?” Her tone struck him as accusatory.

She couldn’t possibly grasp warfare with guns and tanks. “That wasn’t our job. Another…scout, had been sent the night before, and no enemies were seen.”

“Much can change in a night,” she scoffed. “Did you not surround the village and trap the enemy within?”

He sighed at her obvious suggestion. It was what he had wanted to do, but his commanding officer ordered them to march into the village as a unit. “We stayed in formation and pressed forward, but there was…” he was going to say something more about wildfire, but she already knew he wasn’t from _her_ Westeros. “We had weapons, guns. They’re like crossbows only much more powerful and can shoot over and over without reloading.”

“Where did you get them?” Her tone was confusing, and he couldn’t decide if she were poking for more knowledge of his whereabouts or hoping to get better weapons for her own use.

“Brought them with us. The enemy had them, too, and we were caught in their crossfire.”

“Yes, that was the wrong strategy. One you did not want, I can tell.”

His tone must have given him away. “It wasn’t my call.”

“You are a Lannister.” She seemed puzzled.

Things probably would be that simple in this time. A Lannister got what a Lannister wanted. “That didn’t matter in my war.”

“Then what would you have done?” she asked, and her expression seemed to be of genuine interest.

She’d had the right idea before. He wanted to know how her mind worked, to better inform him of Ser Jaime’s trust in her. “What would _you_ have done?”

She thought for a few silent moments. “Was the village walled or open?”

“Walled.”

“How many entrances?”

Explaining the village’s layout would be difficult. He fervently wished he could draw with a real pen in his notebook, but with only his left hand, he’d have to make do with something else.

He scooted off the bunk and onto the floor, feeling closer to normal from her broth. “Give me your knife.”

“What?”

He glanced up, mildly exasperated. “Your knife. The one that’s always in your boot?”

She glared but reached down to fish the small blade from her sodden leather boot anyway.

He took it and began to clumsily scratch into the damp floor the outline of the village walls, adding two marks where each entrance was located. She shrugged off her fur and joined him on the floor, watching as he worked.

“See,” he pointed to the entry marks, “these were once gates but the bars were long gone. The walls were easily scaled if you stood on someone’s shoulders. There was a square in the middle, just here,” he made a mark. “The enemy troops hid in the homes surrounding the square, and they rigged the well in the middle with bombs.”

“Where did you enter?” she asked.

“Here, and we were driven out the same way.” He smirked over at her. “Now show me what you would have done.”

She took the knife and peered at the crude map. “How many archers?”

“None, and thank the gods. I hate archers.” Those snide little bastards in some of the farther villages kept wounding his men with their blasted arrows, and you never heard them coming.

“You brought no archers into battle? What sort of war was this?” She seemed angry at the utter ridiculousness of the idea.

He thought he might know what she’d say next. “No archers and no horses. Just sixteen men with guns.”

“No wonder you lost,” she muttered as she dipped her finger again.

The faces of his dead friends flooded his mind, and he didn’t like her callous tone. “Not just guns. There were bombs and grenades like wildfire wrapped in metal so they explode on impact. They tear flesh from bone until a man who you just shared your rations with becomes a blanket of blood on the ground with nothing left to bury.” He sucked in a breath to calm himself, but his hand had clenched in a tight fist, his nails digging into his palm.

She stared at him with startled eyes, all blue seas that he didn’t want to look at. “I…I am sorry. I did not mean to make light of your loss.”

“Their loss. I only lost a hand,” he scoffed.

“No, Jaime. You lost much more than that.” She stared for a moment longer, then cleared her throat and took the knife to the floor.

She marked X’s around the perimeter. “Without current scouting to accurately assess enemy positions, I would have assumed the possibility of an ambush, at least two-to-one. At each of the four entrances, I would have positioned two men with crossbows, or…guns, and sent another over the wall and onto the rooftops. Each pair on the ground would push into the village from their own entrance, ensuring the houses on either side were free of enemies as the man on the rooftop was prepared to shoot in case of attack. Fewer lives would be lost this way.”

Her tone had shifted so abruptly from remorse to all-business that he took a moment to adjust. “But they were all in the middle, and they blew up the well.”

She nodded. “The water source would be the most obvious place of ambush. The remaining four men in your company would be sent to observe the well until the village was cleared apart from the center. The men on the rooftops would then destroy the well with their wildfire before the enemy could harm you by doing the same. This would cause the enemy to attack or to make a stand inside. Either way, you have men at every point of escape and could more easily defeat them.”

It was not a perfect plan, but Jaime had to admit it would have been far superior to his commanding officer’s orders, and probably better than what he himself would have done. “You have a mind for battle tactics, I see.”

She blushed. He had no idea why such a simple compliment was enough to throw her for a loop.

He was finally feeling better and wanted some air. Surely it had to be dark by then. He missed having a watch, or even the moon to look at in this dark cabin. “Could we go up top?”

“Are you feeling well enough to walk? Sea air would help you, I think, and I have not yet attended to your clothes,” she reminded.

He’d forgotten that she wanted to get rid of the clothes he’d worn until White Harbor. They might be filthy and torn, but he would be losing yet another piece of his real existence, from his real time, if they were gone. He hated it, but he understood her reasoning. He’d never be able to wear them in King’s Landing, and it would be best that no one else see their factory-produced nature.

“Yes, all right. Overboard they go, but not my bag,” he warned. Not his camera or his notebook that he hadn’t looked at once this whole time. But they were his, and he would hide them.

“I did not suggest those.” She rose and grabbed the bundle of his clothes that she’d tied together to form a weighty lump.

He’d miss his boots most. They were sturdy leather with stiff laces. The new ones didn’t fit well, and though he’d barely walked in them, he knew they’d bite into his toes and give him blisters.

The air was stuffier in the passage outside their cabin, but just as cold. He weaved from side to side until she took hold of his elbow and held him steady. He felt the strength in her arm, jealous that she still had two where he had one and a useless, atrophied excuse.

The steep ladder to the upper deck was another challenge to overcome one-handed. He hadn’t remembered the descent being so difficult, but he hadn’t been seasick for days at that point.

He precariously balanced on the ladder with his feet as he pushed the hatch open over his head. The frigid, wet air assaulted him as he emerged, clearing his head and weakening his body at the same time. Sailors milled about as they kept the ship running, but a few were lazily whittling or napping on piles of sailcloth. Brienne came up behind him with the bundle of his clothes.

“Come,” she said, close to his ear to be heard over the noise of the sea. “Aft is more secluded.”

He chuckled under his breath since her words almost sounded like a lover’s invitation.

The wind was still strong though the sea seemed calmer. Jaime weaved a little as he made his way past sagging ropes and the outstretched legs of lazy sailors, Brienne behind him close enough to feel her body heat. He climbed the seven or eight steps to the aft deck. Two crewmen leaned against the rails as they argued whether it was the Drowned God or the Warrior who claimed the souls of men who died at sea.

Brienne gripped his elbow. “Come. This side.” She led him to the right, as far from the sailors as they could get. “Is your discomfort easing?”

He sucked in a deep lungful of the tangy sea air. “Yes, actually. Maybe you won’t be stuck in that cabin with me for all hours of the day now.”

She stared out into the darkness. “There are worse things.”

“Is that a compliment?” he smirked and faced her, leaning on the thick wood railing of the deck.

“I suppose so. I only meant I can rest without worrying that you might rob me, or kill me. Or that I would be raped in my sleep like that man at the inn tried to do.” She voiced these threats so cavalierly, as if they were just _things_ to avoid.

Perhaps in this time, they were. There was no point in getting angry about it, or pretending that such things didn’t exist in his Westeros, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing was the same, and all he had was the promise of home and this strange, freckled woman for company. “We’re in cahoots now. We’ll watch out for each other, no?

This time, when she faced him, there was the slightest smile lurking at the corner of her mouth. “You speak such nonsense.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I suppose so, yes.” She lifted the bundle of his clothes and set it on the rail. “Here.”

He reached for it, but his hand only rested on the top as a voice disrupted their peace.

“Oy there, what’r’ya hidin’?”

The pair of sailors shuffled over and eyed them. Jaime glanced at Brienne, meeting her gaze in a silent communication. _We should have been more careful_.

The truth might be best this time. “Nothing. Just disposing of some old clothes.”

“And why might ya do that fer, this time o’ night in the dark?” The other sailor asked.

Jaime sighed. Another pointless conflict with a meddlesome moron.

Brienne stopped him from digging the hole deeper. “We were in a fight. These rags are stained with blood and are therefore useless.”

“A fight wit a woman? You lose yer maidenhead wit yer looks?” The first sailor smirked.

The second grabbed for the bundle. “If yer hidin’ it, must be worth somthin’. Give it ‘ere.”

Jaime gripped it harder. “If we fought so violently that these clothes are blood-soaked, yet we live, what does that tell you?”

Both sailors appraised them, a woman in a tunic and a man with one hand. “Tells me yer lyin’. I said give it ‘ere!”

Jaime swept the clothes away, straight into the sea where the bundle disappeared out of sight far before it hit water with a telltale plunk.

He smirked at the sailors. “Guess you’ll have work for your wages like honest men.”

Brienne sighed next to him, and he realized how bad a move he’d made a split second before the larger first sailor’s fist plowed into his stomach. He felt Brienne’s arm around him as he bent over, clutching his gut as he groaned and vomited all that helpful broth onto the deck. Then the arm was gone.

“Get off me!” she shouted into the night.

He tried to stand upright, forced himself to, and saw both sailors grappling with her as she shoved them back one at a time. She was a powerful thing in motion, her muscled arms serving her well. He took an unsteady step closer to help her, though he knew it was pointless. She didn’t seem as if she needed help anyway, but when that same idiot sailor spotted Jaime still standing, he let go of Brienne and bent his head, charging like a mad bull. Jaime felt the crush of him against his ribs, and then he tumbled backward into the darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by Mikki. All my crap is beta'd by Mikki, and it wouldn't make half as much sense without her!
> 
> Next Tuesday, see-through tunics and bunk-sharing.


	9. Chapter 9

 

Jaime didn’t comprehend that he should shout until he slammed into the frigid water. There was no air left in his lungs as his body was hammered by waves and he sputtered with real fear.

“Jaime!” he heard from the swift-moving ship before the sea pulled him under again.

He bobbed up, struggling. Under the water, into the air, over and over. A loud splash sounded, maybe a rope or a dingy.

He could swim. He had to try, but he was off balance and one-handed. His ribs felt shattered. He couldn’t turn over to swim the right way, and instead remained half on his back and half on one side as he flailed.

“Jaime!” the shout came again, but closer. So much closer.

“Here,” he sputtered, though it didn’t even sound like a word through the noise around him.

He could barely see. The ship moved on and on, and in seconds would be gone. This time, he was going to die, and the sailors hadn’t even decided which god would get his soul.

Something touched him. He jerked against its weight, but it wrapped around his chest just under his arms and remained there.

He coughed to expel the water, but it only sucked more in, and he lowered his lids with no intention of opening them again. But he did. Eyes were on him, and when he saw them glowing with specks of silver from reflected moonlight, he felt a deep sorrow that the wench would die there with him.

“Jaime,” she whispered, or possibly shouted. It all sounded the same among the roaring waves. “Jaime, hold on to me.”

He felt the burn of a rope scraping against his neck. He focused on her as she bobbed with him, the rope wound around her shoulder. It was pulling them, or were they pulling it?

His body was lifted from the water, his legs dangling in air as he concentrated on his heartbeat. He was alive, he supposed. Dead hearts didn’t beat. He was so tired of being confused and disoriented and in pain. He choked water onto her shoulder and let his head rest there as he breathed in the sharp scents around them, and felt her clammy skin against his.

More arms grabbed at him. He was pulled from her and set on the deck with a thud, and he rolled his head to one side to see if she were all right. His mind cleared a little with each agonizing breath. A few crewmen held swinging lanterns, and the Captain…Lanos, wasn’t it? He was there, shouting at anyone and everyone.

Brienne stood by the railing, staring at him as her body shook. Her tunic had turned transparent. He was surprised to see that she had breasts. They were something to look at since his body had forgotten how to function and his mind had clouded from near-death. He wondered if she were bothered by her breasts as they were small, especially on her large frame. Cersei had always worn lacy Myrish brassieres to make her already-perfect breasts shapelier, but he couldn’t remember what lace looked like. He couldn’t remember what his sister’s breasts looked like, either. Brienne’s were pale like the rest of her. He knew they’d be covered in freckles beneath her tunic, and they looked soft and strangely delicate compared to her muscled limbs.

Brienne caught his line of sight and instantly crossed her arms to hide her pink nipples. It would be hard to forget those now he’d seen them, and hard to look her in the eye without teasing her about it. Captain Lanos draped a cloak over her shoulders, and she tugged it close, still shaking.

He tried to prop himself on his elbows, but his right arm had gone numb. One elbow, then. The Captain shouted more and moved to crouch next to Jaime.

“Can you speak?” he asked.

“I…” Jaime choked and spit water on to the deck. “Guess not.”

Lanos grabbed Jaime by the numb elbow and hauled him to his feet.

He stumbled and nearly collapsed until Brienne rushed over to catch him. She held him half against her, but this time she wasn’t any warmer than he.

The deep crease between the Captain’s eyes lessened. “You will live at least, and you will not be harmed again, I assure you. My men will be beaten for this.”

Jaime nodded, not caring what happened to the sailors who threw him overboard and attacked Brienne. He felt clarity returning, confusion replaced by anger. He managed to clear his raw throat enough to speak. “Beat them, brand them…whatever. But I want them to apologize to Lady Brienne.”

He wanted them humiliated in front of their fellows. Groveling to a woman was always a sure way of accomplishing that.

Captain Lanos immediately nodded. “They are bound to the mast. This way, and once you and your wife return to your cabin, I will have hot wine and a meal sent down.”

Jaime felt Brienne stiffen at the reminder of their deception, but he wondered whether the Captain really believed it. No matter. It served them well for the time being.

The Captain led them down to the main deck, Brienne still supporting Jaime but less with each step though his ribs screamed objections. The two sailors who had attacked them were tied to the huge log mast, waiting for their punishment with scowls and spat curses.

Captain Lanos struck one across the cheek. “My _paying_ passenger wishes for you to apologize to his lady.”

The first sailor grinned menacingly, black holes showing where he’d lost teeth. “Sorry, _m’lady_. Didn’t mean ta treat ya like a real woman or nothin’.”

The Captain raised his hand to strike again, but Jaime stepped forward. He didn’t know exactly what he meant to do until he faced the two men, but he’d felt that rage boiling inside him from the second his senses started to return. This was getting ridiculous. Lady or not, Brienne’s station didn’t seem to be enough to garner basic respect, and his identity as a nameless hobo was just about as useful. Enough.

“Do you know who I am?” he growled out, voice raspy from his immersion in the sea.

“God o’ cripples and ugly whores?” the sailor spat at his feet.

“I am _Jaime Lannister_ ,” he roared like the lion he was supposed to be. He _was_ Jaime Lannister, if not the version they would all know, but that didn’t matter. “And you know the words, don’t you, boy?”

Jaime knew immediately he’d taken a great risk. He didn’t think Lanos had any particularly stong loyalty, not when he willingly sailed south, but any one of the sailors could pose a threat. A Lannister would either offer a pretty reward or a nice dead trophy. He had to make sure that didn’t happen. _How did they communicate here? Something in the books…_

“Don’t you just love ravens?” he added. “How they fly from one place to another, like White Harbor to King’s Landing for instance, and tell tales of secret arrivals?”

The sailor’s face went properly pale. So did the Captain’s. If he and Brienne were expected in King’s Landing by Lannisters, Captain Lanos couldn’t allow them to be harmed or ransomed without repercussion.

The sailor knew. He’d signed his death warrant in this time, by threatening a Lannister. Jaime relished his power in that moment, and wanted to have the man tossed into the sea. Judging by Captain Lanos’ worried expression, Jaime knew he could demand whatever he wished. A threat would do, for now.

“A Lannister always pays his debts.” He spat seawater onto the man’s feet and returned to Brienne, grabbing her arm in a show of possession, though he really needed her support to keep his weak body from falling after his show of strength.

They passed the Captain who stood with dignity and doubt. If Jaime decided to blame him for what had happened, he would likely lose his ship and possibly his life in the scenario Jaime had outlined. Fortunately, Jaime knew the strain of unruly subordinates.

“Captain,” he said, his voice low. “I’d consider it a personal favor if you ensure that we are not disturbed on this voyage again. I will double our fare once we arrive safely.”

The Captain nodded sharply, his expression one of blatant relief. “I will whip any man to death who speaks a word against you, and I will get you closer to the capitol than Duskendale. The coast not far from Rosby. We have ravens. Would you have one sent to the city to summon an escort?”

Jaime nodded. “Yes, I think that would be wise.”

He figured that a contingent of friendly men leading them into the city would be far safer than going it alone. He summoned a sliver of strength still left to him to make it to the hatch leading below. Brienne shielded him from view with her cloaked body, practically lowering him down with her hands under his arms. He leaned against the wood panel of the passage, wondering how injured she might be as she eased down the ladder to join him.

She pushed their cabin door open, and he wobbled over to the bunk and immediately collapsed on it. She barred the door and sank against the wall. “You are soaking the bed.”

“I don’t care,” he muttered. A few seconds later he asked, “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Are. You. Hurt?” He rolled his head to look at her as she slumped against the wall, shivering.

He was shaking, too. He hadn’t realized that.

“No. I promise.”

“Come here and get warm,” he demanded in his Lannister voice, rusty from disuse since he had been in command months ago.

“The bed will not be warm now it is soaked, and you are certainly not warm.”

“Bloody wench,” he murmured under his breath as he forced himself to sit up and peel the soaked tunic off.

She stood and lit a thick candle that smelled like old beef, shrugging off the Captain’s cloak from her shoulders and kicking off her boots and filthy socks or stockings or whatever the hells they were. She seemed to have forgotten the clinging state of her tunic as she faced him with no awareness that she was practically half-naked. This close, he could see some of her freckles through the fabric, spattered across her breasts. He looked away before she caught him again.

She silently handed him the cloak he’d worn since Winterfell and a tunic from her own pack.

“Wear this and wrap the cloak around you,” she said.

He had no spare clothing, and he knew the dry tunic was her only option. “No, you wear it. The cloak will do for me.”

Before she could object, he clumsily fastened the cloak and struggled to pull off his trousers and boots with one almost-numb hand. He heard her inhale sharply from behind him right before he caught sight of her wet tunic landing on the floor, then a humming noise of contentment accompanying the swish of her heavy wool cloak.

He gave up tangling his fingers in the wet fabric of his trousers, trying to kick his boots off instead. He heard her sigh, and she circled him with an exasperated grimace, yanking the sodden pile of leather and wool from around his ankles. She’d have quite a view if he hadn’t kept his incongruous boxer shorts on. He decided to wink at her if she looked up, but she didn’t, much to his disappointment.

When she stood, he caught a glimpse of bare leg beneath her cloak. She must be wearing only the dry tunic underneath. That leg was like a column of a temple he’d seen in Pentos, pale and reaching to the sky and strong enough to support a thousand tons of marble. He wrapped the cloak tighter to conceal his body’s absurd reaction. Home. That’s what he needed. Home and Cersei. He lay down and stared at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Brienne.

She bent to arrange her bedroll, her cloak slipping to reveal both legs this time. He watched as she knelt on the uncomfortable surface, still shaking as if electrified. He was starting to feel as exasperated by her as she obviously was by him.

“Brienne, come on. We’re both freezing here. Don’t you think practicality outweighs misplaced virtue?”

He scooted over on the narrow mattress as far as he could, and she glanced almost longingly at the space.

“Back to back,” he prodded, turning to face the wall. “Like on the road.”

Finally she moved, and the bunk creaked under the weight of her body as she stretched out beside him. He felt her spine against his like he had the night they’d made their pact. It was comforting, though they both still shook. Whenever that hot wine arrived, it would be the most welcome thing he could taste.

They lay in silence until he couldn’t take it anymore. “How bad was it up there?” He knew she’d understand.

She sucked in a breath he felt in his own body from her proximity. “It’s _Ser_ Jaime.”

“What?”

“Ser Jaime Lannister. You forgot the Ser.” She was so quiet.

“Other than that?” He hoped she wasn’t mad. He’d hate to be confined in this cabin with an angry Brienne.

“Fine,” she said, taking a long while before she continued. “You sounded just like him.”

“Arrogant?” he prodded, though it was the truth and they both knew it.

“Powerful.” She lapsed into silence, her back stiff again.

He hated silence. “Want another story? I’ve got a doozy about a stray cow and a guy named Torv who had this thick accent—”

“I know who you are,” she blurted out, though her voice was quiet.

She spoke the truth. He could hear it in every syllable, feel it in the pressure of her body. He didn’t know quite why he felt dread from her confession. What did it matter, really, if she knew? But how could she know? How could she possibly understand?

“Who am I, then?” he tried to sound so casual, as if he didn’t care one bit.

She didn’t speak or move for a long while, and then the press of her spine left as she reached under the bunk and fished for something, finding whatever she’d wanted before she returned to her position against him. She had to feel the tension rippling through his muscles, however weak they currently were.

“You are Jaime Lannister.” She sounded certain. Not like before when she’d known by his face who he was, but not _known_.  

“I have always been Jaime Lannister.” It was the only thing he knew to say.

Then she laughed. It was a different thing, this laugh, one that hadn’t been among the few laughs she’d made in his presence, and not a laugh he’d heard from anyone before. It was a laugh of disbelief and revelation at the same time, as if she were absolutely certain of something that could not possibly be true. So she _did_ know.

“You are from another time. You are from the future,” she said with confidence beneath the jolts of her laughter at the ridiculousness of her own statement.

Something landed on his arm, and he glanced up to see his notebook perching there. She’d read it, she had to have. She’d had that pack with her the entire time. Of course she’d read it. If their situations were reversed, he would have done the same.

He’d bought that notebook the day he’d returned to Westeros. He couldn’t even recall what he’d written in it, other than lists of things he’d wanted to do, phone numbers of buddies. William Waters’ address in Highgarden. Ramblings about the war. Train times and ticket prices. Specs for that new roadster he’d thought of buying.

Notes about Lannister genealogy and history. And she was a clever wench.

“How could you believe that? It’s impossible,” he mumbled, not entirely sure why he fished for an explanation when it wouldn’t change anything.

She’d stifled her laughter, and her tone was so strange coming from her, almost one of pain mixed with wonder. “I saw with my own eyes a shadow come to life. It took form and killed a king and vanished into dust. Who am I to claim what is possible?”

He was the one to remain silent this time.

“Do you not believe my tale?” She sounded almost amused.  

He could claim the same as she. Who was he to disbelieve that a shadow could commit murder when he’d traveled through time? “I believe you.”

“You are only the second person to do so. No one else will ever believe it.”

“But why the future?” He had to know. “Why not someplace far away?”

“Your accent is wrong. You speak words that have no meaning, yet they fall from your tongue with the ease of practice. Your clothes and boots were made in ways I have never seen.” She paused all amusement gone completely. “You have his face. How is it that you would have his face if not a true Lannister? You are his descendant, are you not?”

He gave up. There was no point in evasiveness, and really, it was such a relief to have this last lie fade away between them. “Honestly, I don’t know. There are things about this time that I do know, big, important things, but my family history is murky. Since Ser Jaime has died already, I must be descended from Cersei or Tyrion. I don’t think Ser Jaime could have had a bastard since the child would not have been claimed as a true Lannister.”

Her laughter returned. “You do not know, do you?”

“About what?”

“Ser Jaime has three bastards. One of them is King Joffrey.”

But Joffrey Baratheon was Ser Jaime’s nephew…King Robert Baratheon’s son with the ancestral Cersei. “How is that possible?”

“I thought we both believe in impossible things. Your sister…Cersei Baratheon’s three children are of Ser Jaime’s seed.”

He did not know why he felt shock. Children were the natural product of sex, and Brienne had already told him of his shared proclivities with Ser Jaime. That had been bad enough, to feel that in yet another way he did not have his own identity but was some cosmic joke, a repetition in history now meant to live in the shadow of the original.

He’d never considered children. He’d always known that kind of life wouldn’t be possible with Cersei, not in his Westeros. They looked too much alike to ever pass as anything but siblings. And Cersei hadn’t wanted motherhood.

But here, there were three children who would look exactly as his own children might. He would see them, talk to them even. His pained ribs clenched, but he didn’t know why.

“Do they know?” he finally muttered.

She sounded sympathetic. “Ser Jaime did not believe so, though everyone of importance in Westeros has heard the rumors. Stannis Baratheon seeks the Iron Throne on the foundation that Cersei’s children are not Robert’s heirs.”

They would be in danger then. He hadn’t realized the extent of the game being played all around him, everywhere and in every corner of the known world. He’d read about it. Stripped down versions carefully compiled by victors. He knew nothing of truth.

He turned over to his other side, facing her back as he cradled his ribs under the cloak that had warmed his body to a near-bearable degree. “Brienne, I must know of him. Whatever you will tell me. I _will_ help you find Lady Catelyn’s daughters, but I can’t function in this place without knowledge. I barely understand anything.”

She sighed deeply as he watched the movement in her shoulders. She rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling, but she didn’t look at him.

“I will tell you, but not everything.” Her tone was a warning not to pry, but then she added, “Not yet.”

There was hope then, that she would trust him. There was no reason for her to do so, but he wanted her trust all the same, because he felt in his gut that there would be no one else in King’s Landing who would tell him the truth the way she would.

“Whatever you say I will not repeat to a soul,” he assured.

So she told him. Her tales were second-hand, and he knew Ser Jaime would have used far more colorful language and boastful claims when he’d told them to her, but they would do. She told of Casterly Rock and Ser Jaime’s mother. Of Tyrion’s birth and Joanna Lannister’s consequent death. Of Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Jaime’s knighthood. The Kingsguard, the unmatchable skill with a sword, the love he had for his brother.

The hot wine and some stew was delivered as promised, and they sat side by side on the bunk as she told story after story, until she reached Ser Jaime’s capture by Robb Stark, and his subsequent imprisonment, escape, and confinement in a shit-filled cell. He inferred that part. Brienne’s word choices were far more delicate.

She told of Lady Catelyn’s decision to release Robb’s prisoner into Brienne’s custody. She told of narrowly escaping recapture in a boat on the river. They lay back down, exhausted, but still she spoke.

She told of bandits called the Bloody Mummers who’d captured them and taken Ser Jaime’s hand. Her voice shook then, because she told how Ser Jaime had saved her from being raped more than once. The idea of what could have happened to her made him nauseous as he almost tangibly felt the pain and gratitude coloring her tone. _Sapphires_ , she whispered like a prayer, always looking at the ceiling.

She told of being taken to Harrenhal, and there she stopped. She’d said the rest before, how Ser Jaime left but came back for her for a reason she didn’t explain, and then he had died.

Jaime knew with absolute certainty that she left a thousand things out. She hadn’t said how many conversations she’d had with Ser Jaime, how many hours she’d spent in his company, but Jaime felt simply from the cadence of her voice that she had known him deeply. He hadn’t understood the extent of her loss.

She stopped at last, her voice raspy.

“Thank you,” he said, the words coming more easily now to acknowledge everything she was doing for him so she could fulfill her vow.

She waited a moment. “As you said, you needed to know.” She turned away, onto her side.

He did the same so their backs fit together. He liked that. “It must be dawn by now. We should sleep.”

“When we arrive in King’s Landing,” her voice was so soft he thought he might be dreaming it, “I will not know anyone. We will both be ignorant, and that is a dangerous thing.”

He sighed, feeling the truth of her words. “Then it’s a good thing we’re in cahoots.”

The last thing he heard before deep slumber claimed him was her light chuckle.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mikki for beta-ing like a boss, and to everyone who is reading this! It makes me all warm and fuzzy when even one person enjoys my words, and you have all been so kind. JB fandom is the bestest. 
> 
> Next week, King's Landing, swordplay, jealous Cersei is jealous.


	10. Chapter 10

 

Flashes of Lannister red dotted the shore as the ship’s sails were lowered and the anchor dropped. Jaime stood at the railing as his hand tightly gripped the smooth wood. He tried to count the mounted men in the welcome party, but they were too close together to distinguish. It was an impressive display of pure white horses and tall red flags.

“Do not show them your fear.” Brienne’s voice was quiet but adamant as she came to stand next to him.

He glanced at her, almost hating that it was she who stood by his side and not Cersei. Cersei, who felt almost as distant as his life before the war. It was Brienne he seemed to know so much better than his own sister, Brienne who knew without words what he was thinking, that he wouldn’t be able to fool his father, his brother, Cersei.  _The wrong Cersei_. 

“Remember who you are,” she interrupted his thoughts again.

He chuckled. “I am Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”

Her gaze was scathing as she turned to him, the crewmen gathering along the ship’s side to lower a dingy. “You might at least try to sound convincing. Your face will not give you away.”

Yes, his face, the only thing that could not be denied when surrounded by Lannister ancestors. “Yup, I’m just the top banana.”

“And you must stop that!” She leaned closer, wearing her most serious expression. “I might know why you so often speak strangely, but if you say such things to others, there will be questions.”

He mimicked her stiff posture and glare, leaning closer as well. “That’s why I have a head injury. To cover my lapses.”

“That will only carry you so far. You cannot be so ill as to be unfit for your duty in the Kingsguard. It must be a minor condition that will _heal_ as you acclimate to this life.” She was only repeating what they had already discussed so many times in the darkness of their cabin, and he was just about done with it.

“I know, I know, for fucks’s sake.” He faced the shore just to get her judgmental eyes out of sight. In his periphery, he saw her stand taller, as tall as she could, and he knew it was her posture of resentment.

“I am only addressing your _fear_.”

“I know. I’m not afraid,” he insisted.

The dingy was free on the water, bumping against the ship’s side and two sailors manned the oars. Captain Lanos came to stand beside them.

“I am glad to see that the raven arrived safely. You’ll have no trouble getting to the city with that sort of escort.” He cleared his throat and nodded to the men on the shore.

Jaime steeled himself and adopted his command persona, the one Ser Jaime had probably worn daily for his entire life. “I thank you, Captain, for the safe passage.”

“Mostly,” Lanos reminded with a wry twist of lips.

“Mostly.” He handed Captain Lanos a pouch containing their last two gold dragons.

“A token,” Jaime said, “of our gratitude. The rest will be sent back with your dinghy."

“That isn’t necessary, Ser Jaime.” The Captain shook his head.

“I insist. You have guarded us well, and gold from a Lannister is sign of good will and debts paid, no?”

The Captain held his gaze for several seconds before blinking and nodding. “Then I thank you heartily. More ale for the men, I think.”

“That’s the spirit.” Jaime smiled just enough and nodded a bit cockily because Brienne had said it was exactly the way Ser Jaime had nodded.

“Good luck to you, Ser.” The Captain returned his nod in a much more serious way.

“And to you.” Jaime turned to Brienne to see whether she was ready to go.

She did not speak as she clutched a large black bundle, her cloak wrapped around both their bags. She had suggested keeping his belongings with her since there were sure to be squires and servants messing with his things once they made shore. They both moved to the open space left by a swinging panel in the railing. She strapped the bundle to her back and barely even looked for footing as she descended a rope ladder.

He followed with no semblance of grace, hid body swinging side to side from the uneven balance as he could only use one hand. He was grateful Brienne didn’t try to catch him as he almost fell into the dinghy. The indignity would be terrible.

The sailors didn’t say a word as they rowed, closer and closer to the line of rocky shore until one jumped out into shallows and gripped the front of the dinghy. Brienne hopped out and waded forward, her muscled legs making small waves behind her. He followed again, bunching his cloak into a wad he gripped to avoid soaking it. His boots just emerged from the water when an armored man with red and gold enamel on the breastplate stepped forward, gripping his arm and hauling him up the last few feet, into a semicircle formed by horses. Brienne stood in the middle.

The man quickly scanned Jaime, his eyes settling on the stump for a little too long, and he glanced away quickly after. “Lord Commander, it is good news indeed that you are alive. When word reached the men, they all volunteered to form your escort.”

It was clear that this man, the head of this unit or contingent or whatever judging by the quality of the armor, had known Ser Jaime personally. _Wonderful, a test right away._ Hopefully, Brienne’s coaching on words to avoid and inflections to use would pay off.

He cleared his throat, knowing full well that the claim was most likely an exaggeration anyway. “It warms my heart to hear it. I am delighted to return, though it seems I’ve left a hand behind somewhere.”

The man chuckled, and Jaime answered with a grin. _Test passed, then._

“Come, Lord Commander. Your father has provided a new mount to replace the destrier you lost. And one for your companion as well.” The man glanced at Brienne with curiosity, and to Jaime’s dismay, a little disdain if a raised brow and tiny sneer were any way to judge.

He didn’t have to clear his throat this time. “This is Lady Brienne of Tarth. I owe her my life, and I will have it understood that she is to be met with a treatment equal to my own.”

He heard the near-snarl in his voice. It almost surprised him, but the intent was genuine. Regardless of his promise to her about the Stark girls, Brienne _had_ saved his life multiple times. There was a genuine debt there, but not the kind that could be repaid.

The man took a step back and was obviously surprised by Jaime’s tone. “Of course, Lord Commander.” He turned to the man nearest Brienne. “Ser Weamon, assist the Lady with her belongings and her mount.”

Brienne clutched their black bundle to her chest, shaking her head. “I need no assistance.”

The man peered at her with puzzlement and annoyance.

“You heard her. Leave her be,” Jaime commanded.

The man nodded immediately, and Jaime smirked to himself from the satisfaction of having his orders followed without question, just like wartime. It was something he knew.

He met Brienne’s gaze and could almost hear her voice in his ear warning him not to overdo it. He winked at her. She blushed as he knew she would, and it lasted until she was settled on a great white horse that suited her frame.  Jaime ignored the officer’s look of appraisal. Let him think what he wanted, it was no matter.

He approached another mount that could have been a copy of Brienne’s, and he let the commander help him up, feigning dizziness for a moment as he swayed a little in the saddle and gasped in a breath.

“Ser Jaime…are you well?” the man asked.

He carefully recited the excuse he had practiced with Brienne, with a few of his own embellishments. “A year in a fucking Tully prison has made me a bit unused to daylight, that’s all.”

Brienne took her cue. “Ser Jaime, there is your head as well.”

He glared and pretended to be severely irritated by her _revelation_. “My head is fine.”

The man took the bait. “Can you ride, Ser?”

“Of course I can fucking ride. I merely took a hit on the back of my head. I’ll be right as rain in a few days.” He sneered and settled in the line of horses next to Brienne, not letting himself grimace as he realized he’d slipped with the vocabulary. She flashed him a look of resignation.

The company formed into a double line and began walking south along the shore. The man who was the leader mounted and trotted to the front of the line. Brienne moved her horse beside his, glanced at the dozens of men behind them, and leaned over the space between them despite another blush forming. He didn’t know the reason for this one.

“You must move to the front. You are the commander, not he.” She spoke as softly as she could, her eyes intent.

She was, of course, right. It was an annoying habit of hers, and he’d really have to review the ranks with her if he had any hope of understanding his position as Lord Commander.

“Yes, all right.” He moved his heels back in preparation for a light kick, but he noticed she wasn’t doing the same. “You, too.”

She leaned close again, almost sneering. “I am a _Lady_ , Jaime. I’m supposed to be _protected_ in the line.”

“That’s ridiculous. Come up with me.”

“They will question you,” she insisted.

He felt another snarl coming. “If I’m supposed to behave like the Lord Commander, like a _Lannister_ , then I get to decide who rides where in the line. And I want you with me.”

He kicked his horse before she could respond, cantering to the front of the long line on the shore side and quickly spotting the commander. He glanced to the other side with satisfaction since Brienne had sense enough to join him. He wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to ride beside the company’s leader or ahead of him, but Brienne nodded almost imperceptibly and moved her horse in front. Jaime did the same, leaving the commander riding alone behind them.

Jaime sat straighter in his saddle. He was filthy and dressed like a peasant, but he found that he didn’t have to fake his sense of control for once. This was familiar, the leading of men, even if everything else was foreign. He wouldn’t undermine his control by stealing glances at Brienne or trying to speak to her when everyone in the company was watching, but he let a smile split his face anyway. Only she could see that, if she were even looking.

* * *

When they stopped for the night, Jaime watched in fascination at the nearly-mechanized efficiency of the men as they set up a camp in a field adjacent to the road. It was barely dusk, and he could tell by her furrowed brow that Brienne thought it too early to rest when they had the safety of an entire company with them, but for once on his journey from the north, he wanted to rest at his leisure without being burdened by hunger or the tossing of a ship. He didn’t want to admit that he was nervous about arriving in the city and took the excuse to postpone the inevitable.

He remained on his horse with Brienne on hers next to him. The second-in-command had flashed judgmental glances for hours once Brienne joined him at the front of the line, but Jaime didn’t give a fuck what he or anyone else thought. He stopped in front of large pavilion that sprung up on poles like a fast-growing weed. His quarters, judging by the crimson canvas and lion flags. He saw two other tents some distance away, and those only large enough to hold a bedroll.

“You there!” he called to the man who seemed to be in charge of erecting the structures. “Where is the Lady to rest?”

The man seemed nervous as he strode over and looked up at Jaime on his horse. “Ser Weamon will give use of his tent to the Lady Brienne, Ser Jaime.”

“That gray cave over there, barely large enough for a dog?” Jaime scoffed at the idea, but he felt dead serious about keeping Brienne close. He didn’t think these Lannister men would dare disturb her, but he wasn’t about to leave her alone for an entire night. And he didn’t want to think about sleeping by himself. His night terrors would certainly return and be heard.

The man blinked rapidly. “Yes, that is Ser Weamon’s tent. We…the raven from your ship brought word of your return and of a companion, but we did not know she was a Lady, Ser Jaime. I am sorry for our lack of preparation.”

He wanted to take pity on the man, but he didn’t have that luxury when he was trying so hard to establish his authority. “She is my charge, and her…septa, yes, was unfortunately lost. Do you expect me to leave her out here, unprotected?”

“Of course not?” The man shook his head and looked horrified at the idea. “What are your orders, Ser?”

Jaime pretended to think about it for a moment. “Find cloth, tear apart Ser Weamon’s tent if you must, and hang a separation within my pavilion. Lady Brienne will have half.”

To his credit, the man didn’t flinch or question, merely nodded and darted off to fulfill the order. Jaime heard Brienne’s horse fidget next to him, and glanced at her. She was beet red, but said nothing.

Once the pavilion was finished, complete with an incongruous gray curtain strung through the middle, a hot meal and wine were brought in on large trays, more food than he’d seen in one place since before the war. When he’d returned, he’d stuck to diners until Cersei arrived, and then they kept to small hotels and inns where the fare was simple.

Brienne sat next to him. Two servants hovered right behind, and men in the company popped in and out requesting orders or giving reports. Jaime was extremely annoyed that they couldn’t speak freely after so many weeks of being only in each other’s company. These people were unwelcome intrusions.

Finally, the servants cleared the food and set folded clothes in front of him.

“Do you have anything else?” Jaime asked of one.

“Are these not to yer liking, Ser?” The bony, pockmarked boy asked with almost-shaking hands, glancing back at his fellow that had jowls like an old woman.

“No, no, they’re fine, but the Lady needs something clean as well.”

The two servants looked at each other—Jaime named them Skin and Bones—and Bones moved to retrieve another set, placing it before Brienne.

“These aint fit for a Lady, m’lady, but we’ll send someone ahead to the nearest village fer somethin’ decent.”

“This is fine. Please do not go to any trouble.” She smiled that tight-lipped smile she adopted when attention was on her.

The boy nodded, but still seemed nervous. Jaime was sick of them all. “Leave us. I will…review what has transpired since I was away, and I do not wish to be disturbed.”

The servants nodded and left immediately, but he didn’t really think they’d stray far. He looked to Brienne and beckoned her closer with his fingers. At least she understood the gesture. “This is suffocating. Let’s wash up and find somewhere quiet.”

“For what purpose? It is past nightfall.”

“I don’t know, just to get away.” He ran his fingers through his hair and scowled in disgust when his stump rose out of instinct. It reminded him of something. “Weren’t you supposed to teach me how to use a sword? There was no space on the ship.”

“And you had no stomach for it.” Her eyes were bright. In the fifteen days they’d spent on Captain Lanos’ ship, Jaime had come to realize that Brienne hid an underdeveloped but occasionally biting sense of humor.

“True. How about now?”

“I suppose a bit of practice might be useful.” She finally agreed.

“Good. Clean up and change into those duds, and I’ll meet you out back in ten.” He rose and grabbed his pile of cloth.

She did the same, and when she was on the other side of the flimsy curtain, he could hear the sloshing of her washbasin above the din of the men outside. If he stood against the side of the tent, he could see her head above the barrier, and he wondered whether she had soaked her shirt with her hasty movements, as it had been on the ship.

* * *

Jaime leaned back against a tree in the moonlit clearing he and Brienne had found to escape the curious gazes of the men. Her sword rested limply in his hand as the tip dragged on the ground.

“Show me again,” she demanded from beside him.

“I’m tired,” he grumbled, rolling his head against the rough bark to glare at her.

His clothes, _Ser Jaime’s clothes,_ were tight on her, her shoulders wider than his and her legs longer. His tunic pulled taught over her breasts every time she demonstrated the sword holds.

“Show me and stop complaining.” She stood tall and defiant, but there was a betraying twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Jaime huffed and lifted her sword, thrusting it forward as she watched by his side.

“Not that way! You still look as if you have never seen a sword.” Brienne pried his fingers from the pommel of her weapon and gripped it herself, left handed. “Do you see?

“That’s what I did!” Jaime complained.

“It was not. Your fingers are taking too much weight. Your wrist should bear that burden.” She turned to face him completely. “Like this.”

Jaime grabbed the sword and tried to mimic the way Brienne’s hand wrapped around the pommel, probably for the twentieth time. His hand looked exactly as hers had, but he knew he’d just be mistaken again. “See? I can’t tell the difference!”

She studied his grip for a moment. “This one is better. I think you will see once you practice so you can feel the balance of weight when you move.”

He frowned at her matter-of-fact attitude. “You know I will not master this. It takes years to learn, and I don’t have that luxury. I’ll just have to fake it.”

“And what if you are attacked? Though you handled a dagger well, that weapon is useless against many.” Her brow furrowed as she took back the sword and sheathed it.

_If he only had a gun…_

“I’ve got a fierce weapon in the form of a surly wench.” He winked at her, grinning, too.

She frowned impressively. “Must I demand that you not call me that _again_?”

“Yes.”

She grumbled as a sudden wind made her hair more unruly than usual. “You are exasperating.”

“Yes.”

“And I am not your personal guard.”

Jaime ran his fingers through his hair, grown out of its military cut by then. “There are a dozen weapons I can use expertly. None of them have been invented yet.”

“Then find one that resembles something you already know. I will help you with the sword so you will at least _appear_ to know its use, but there are other things you must learn as well.” She eyed him from head to toe in judgmental appraisal.

“You have no excuse to think I’m weak.” Jaime rounded on her. “Or have you forgotten when I stopped you from dashing off on a suicide mission?”

“You are not weak, you are at a disadvantage.” She stepped closer and adopted that bullish frown.

He immediately twisted her arm behind her back, spinning her around and shoving her front-first into the tree. He pressed into her from behind with his full weight and leaned in to whisper in her left ear. “I survived bombs blowing up around me for five years. I’ll manage.”

She grunted and pushed back against him. He’d lose his position with another push, but he was enjoying his momentary power over her for the split second it lasted.

Twigs snapped in the small clearing, and a throat cleared. Jaime’s head snapped to face the intruder, as did Brienne’s, and he instantly let her go and stepped away. A guard from the company hovered awkwardly with downcast eyes and a faint smirk, a lantern swinging from his hand. Jaime wanted to laugh as he understood what they must have looked like to the guard, with him pressed against his strange Lady companion, breathes heaving from struggle and her cheeks pink from anger.

He tried to compose his features into a severe expression. “What brings you here to interrupt my peace?”

The guard was abruptly all business, and he did look up then. “There is a messenger arrived, from King’s Landing. He says he brings urgent news.”

Jaime glanced back at Brienne and nodded. She followed without hesitation, trudging the short distance to the camp.

By the largest fire stood an armored man, not in Lannister colors, and he was accompanied by two others who stood behind him. The man pivoted as the company’s murmurs quieted upon Jaime’s appearance.

“Lord Commander,” the man almost sighed the title in relief. “I bear tragic news.”

Jaime was filled with impatience. “Speak up then.”

“The King…King Joffrey is…dead.” The man looked to the ground when finished spitting out the words.

Jaime froze. It was not out of shock or grief, it was simple confusion. What was he supposed to feel? _Nothing_. He thought there might be a twinge of regret for the early death of a king who was just a boy, but nothing more than that. He retreated into memory, recalling only that Joffrey Baratheon had been king for a brief time, but there was a large gap between Joffrey and the Dragon Queen. He couldn’t even anticipate what he would encounter in the city.

If he were Ser Jaime, he should feel rage or anguish because Joffrey was supposed to be his son. But Jaime had no sons and never would. He didn’t even know how Ser Jaime would have taken this news. Maybe Brienne would. She always did.

He turned to her despite the peering eyes of everyone around. He knew his gaze was pleading, as helpless as she sometimes thought him to be. Those blue eyes of hers were troubled like stormy seas.

She sucked in a breath and spoke so quietly only a few could hear. “I am sorry for your family’s loss and the country’s anguish. Surely the Kingsguard is troubled.”

 _There it was_ , the thing he needed to hear. He spun back to the messenger and adopted a furious tone. He pictured how he would have felt if William Waters, old Bloody Bill himself, had really been killed under his command, if one of those constant injuries had really taken the life of an admired young man.

“How did this happen? Explain to me why the King was not protected!” he roared.

The messenger stepped back, almost involuntarily. “Lord Commander, I was not there. It was the wedding feast. Poison.”

“Poison? Were there not tasters? Who guarded King Joffrey?” Jaime stepped forward, flooding his audience with his Lannister rage.

“I…I don’t know, Lord Commander. They only sent me to tell you and urge you to King’s Landing more quickly.”

Jaime glared at the man, just because, and started pacing in the hopes of conveying deep thought. Really, he wanted to make his way back to Brienne, and on his second pass, he murmured, “Ride now or morning?”

He didn’t know what the usual response to urgency might be, how the dangers of the road at night might outweigh the need to press forward. On his third pass, she responded.

“Now.”

He stopped in front of the company’s second-in-command. “Saddle our horses. I will take a dozen men and ride for the city immediately.”

The officer nodded sharply. “Does the Lady accompany you?”

Jaime scowled. “The Lady always accompanies me. I should think you’d have understood that by now.”

The man strode away with a nervous glance, followed by several men who clearly assumed they’d be in the chosen dozen. He didn’t give a whit who it was. He turned to the messenger.

“Was there anything more? Anything you’ve left out?”

“No Ser, I swear it.”

“Then you and your men may rest here for the night,” Jaime ordered. He didn’t want yet another set of strange eyes watching him before he could determine who had sent him. Nothing about this time was safe.

Once all had been prepared, Brienne silently mounted beside him, and they were off with only moonlight to fend off dangers.

* * *

The light of the noon sun reflected off the stone walls around King’s Landing. They were so vast they put those in White Harbor to shame. So did the smell. Jaime had thought the scent of old fish and mildew was terrible in the northern city, but here? He couldn’t even describe the putrid cocktail of stench. He wanted to gag but stifled it. Only the tiny pinch of her nostrils gave away Brienne’s own annoyance.

He felt as exhausted as the hard-breathing horses when they approached an enormous set of gates, the Iron Gate. There were no gates anymore, but Jaime knew what they had once been called. And he recognized other things…the hills towering above, the silhouette of the Sept of Baelor in the distance, all its turrets intact rather than the ruin that existed in his time. And the Red Keep, looming on the highest hill to his left as it looked down on Fleabottom and its untouchables.

Several of the men moved to the front to forge a path through the throng. He glanced at Brienne to determine his reaction, but he stayed put once she nodded. They rode toward the Keep, dodging carts of fruit and barefooted children. He knew this road as well. Rosby Way it was called, and the military quarters would be built just there, where a filthy tenement house now stood. He’d been sent there after training at Gullstown. Far in the future, he’d step over the threshold of a new steel door guarded by men holding rifles, and he’d wait there before being shipped out to Essos.

It was his past, and it hadn’t even happened yet. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or get dead drunk as he considered the insane idea. He refused to let his gaze stray from the back of his horse’s head until they rode through the open gates of the Red Keep and slowed within the courtyard. No more memories.

He didn’t wait for help to dismount, and a man wearing glaring white armor and a white cloak like some matinee superhero darted toward him. A Kingsguard then.

“Lord Commander!” the man exclaimed. “We did not think to see you alive.”

“Then you thought to see me dead? How unflattering.” Jaime almost smiled but caught Brienne’s slight shake of the head as she managed to dismount within his field of vision. He composed himself and glared. “Can you explain how it is that another king is dead?”

“It was poison, Lord Commander. Not one of us could have stopped it.” The man didn’t even have the wits to look remorseful.

Jaime knew this man was supposed to be familiar, one of his brothers in arms, but unless someone said his name, he’d have to stumble through this. “You could have tasted everything, or the others. Do you deny this failure, Ser?”

The man looked more afraid of Jaime that of failing his king. “No Ser. But I have been sent to bring you to Lord Tywin at once.”

_Ser Jaime’s father, and the most-powerful man in the city. Wonderful._

He was about to grudgingly accept the inevitable, but an enraged shout filled the courtyard and made Jaime pivot on his heel to find the culprit.

“You!”

Jaime knew immediately that the accusation wasn’t directed at him, but at Brienne. Another white-armored man, much younger and thinner than the first, stomped toward her with a raised fist and piercing eyes.

“Ser Loras.” Brienne stood, holding her bridle as if frozen.

Jaime didn’t know who this man…this _boy_ , was, but clearly Brienne did and was affected by him.

“Why?” the boy snarled. “You will tell me why. He treated you kindly, gave you a rainbow cloak. Why would you kill him?”

 _This is about that Renly._ Jaime stepped a little closer to Brienne, who still hadn’t given up her stiff stance and pained expression.

“I never did. I would have died for him.” She almost seemed to beg for understanding.

“You will.” The boy drew his sword.

Jaime stepped even closer, intending to knock the boy to the ground if he tried anything.

“It was not me,” Brienne pleaded again.

The boy spit his words. “Emmon Cuy swore it was, with his dying breath.”

“He was outside the tent, he never saw—” Brienne dropped the reins to gesture frantically.

“There was no one  _in_  the tent but you and Lady Stark. Do you claim that old woman could cut through hardened steel?”

“There was a  _shadow_. I know how mad it sounds, but . . . I was helping Renly into his armor, and the candles blew out and there was blood everywhere. It was Stannis, Lady Catelyn said. His . . . his shadow. I had no part in it, on my honor . . .”

Why was Brienne trying so hard to explain? She’d barely expected him to believe her when he was well aware of the impossible. This was an act of desperation on her part, and it seemed so unlike her.

“You have no honor.” The boy glared with violence in his eyes. “Draw your sword. I won’t have it said that I slew you while your hand was empty.”

 _Enough_. Jaime stepped between them. “Ser…Loras. The testimony of Lady Brienne is sound and has been corroborated. She is innocent, and I will not have her harmed. Particularly not by _you_.” He looked the boy up and down in appraisal, finding nothing truly threatening.

The boy, Loras, glared up at him, and Jaime suddenly hoped that whoever he was, his status wasn’t not higher than a Lannister's. He couldn’t see how it would be, but still…

“Are _you_ deeming her innocent yourself? Kingslayer?” Loras snarled without an ounce of fear. “I suppose treasonous murderers would want to protect their own.”

Jaime stepped closer to the boy whose childish rage was getting annoying. “Tell me plainly, _Ser_ , are you wearing a white cloak?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Because it seems to me that you’ve given up any former loyalty rather easily for status in the Kingsguard.”

Loras stood as tall as he could and grew very quiet. “You are as craven as she, _Kingslayer._ ”

Jaime’s hand lifted, almost as if to hit Loras, but he felt Brienne’s hand on his right arm. She stepped forward now.

“I swear to you by the Seven that I did not kill King Renly. I swear it.”

“Your oaths are meaningless.” Loras spoke so quietly his words were almost difficult to hear.

Jaime knew then that this boy was genuinely dangerous. He wasn’t stupid, and he was set in his belief of Brienne’s guilt. There was something more to this than she had said.

He stood tall and abruptly wrapped his fingers around the clasp of Loras’ cloak, pulling it tight against his neck. “Since you _are_ in the Kingsguard, _pup_ , you are responsible for failing to fulfill your one, singular duty of keeping the king alive. The king, _my_ nephew. _You_ failed. Shall we string you up for it? Or shall I take your word that it wasn’t you who poisoned him?”

Loras struggled with ever more anger in his dilated eyes, but Jaime shook him and wouldn’t let him speak.

“Let this lie, Ser. She is innocent, and you have _my_ vow that you will be blamed and fittingly punished if she is disturbed again.” Jaime shoved Loras away in disgust.

A third Kingsguard stepped forward and took Loras by the shoulder. “Do as the Lord Commander says, Loras.”

Loras brushed the man’s hand away and swallowed thickly, his eyes narrow. “As you say, _Lord Commander_. I will return to playing the rose with thorns. You know what they say…a small wound only bleeds out more slowly.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was another tricky one that Mikki fixed magnificently. Also, Cersei was too drunk to make an appearance after all, but I'm going to slap her sober for next time.


	11. Chapter 11

 

“I cannot go with you, Jaime,” Brienne insisted in a voice so low it was nearly inaudible.

They stood in the courtyard, just below the entrance to the Tower of the Hand where Tywin Lannister lay in wait. Jaime had been summoned. He paced in a small circle under the watchful eyes of the two Kingsguard who had escorted them, worried about sending Brienne off alone. Loras Tyrell was clearly on a red streak, and he himself was drowning in discomfort from the prospect of giving himself away to Tywin Lannister without Brienne there to stop him.

Jaime came to a halt in front of her, knowing his nerves were wearing on her. “He’s going to know, Brienne. He’ll see how… _wrong_ , I am.”

Her brows drew together, and her lips tightened for a moment. Her thoughtful look, or maybe her pained look. Her fingers gripped the strap of his bag tighter. “Ser Jaime was much changed. He was not the same man at the end.” She swallowed thickly. “You are different and your…his father will see, but there is no reason he will assume the truth. Do not betray yourself.”

He struggled to find his confidence, the kind he felt at war, and the thought gave him a sliver of peace. “Battle tactics, then. All this is battle.”

She nodded. “One of wits rather than swords.”

“Then I’m sure to lose.” He crossed his arms and grimaced.

She was silent so long he thought she was agreeing with him, and he started to feel angry about it.

“Jaime,” she finally spoke, “you managed to convince Captain Lanos without difficulty, and our entire escort. Even Loras Tyrell did not question your identity. Your…his father, will not dwell on difference if you only show him that you are a true Lannister, that you understand what is important. That you are capable of remaining the Lord Commander.”

“I’ll try.” He peered at the cobbles beneath his uncomfortable boots and kept stalling.

“Go, Jaime. Pacing out here makes you appear weak.” Her tone was harsh, but when he looked up, her blue eyes were warm.

He nodded sharply and moved toward one of the white-cloaked men. “See that Lady Brienne is given proper quarters.” He recalled the rage on Loras Tyrell’s face just minutes before and leaned close so Brienne wouldn’t hear. “And place a guard outside her door.”

The man nodded, and Jaime stole one last glance at the giant, dour woman who had done more to save his sorry ass than even his war buddies had. She nodded back, and he stepped inside the enormous stone tower. Stair after stair, winding high above the courtyard, led to a solid door, open now to urge him inside the airy living quarters. _What was it they called it here? A solar._

Jaime folded his arms behind his back, gripping his stump with his fingers. Tywin Lannister reclined in a wood-backed chair before a fireplace, his height still apparent and his hawk-like features casting sharp shadows in the hollows of his cheeks. The moment the older man’s green eyes snapped to meet his, Jaime froze. Tywin was in the histories. He was someone of grave importance. He was power. _How do you deceive a man like that?_

“Jaime,” Tywin said casually, as if his son hadn’t been missing for over a year. “Lord Bolton led me to expect you earlier. I had hoped you’d be here for the wedding.”

 _How do you deceive…you don’t._ “I was delayed.” Jaime closed the door softly behind him.

Tywin examined him, barely moving his eyes, but it was thorough and relentless. “The eunuch told me a few days after your escape.”

Brienne had said nothing of the south knowing that Lady Catelyn let Ser Jaime go free. If Tywin had known that, why wasn’t Ser Jaime rescued before he’d lost his hand? Jaime felt betrayed for his namesake.

“You knew I was free?” His tone came out much harsher than he wanted.

Tywin’s expression did not change. “I sent men into the Riverlands to look for you. Gregor Clegane, Samwell Spicer, the brothers Plumm. Varys put out the word as well, but quietly. We agreed that the fewer people who knew you were free, the fewer would be hunting you.”

Tywin seemed to be a man who never betrayed anything about himself, never allowed any real motive to show if he didn’t wish it, but Jaime didn’t think that even Tywin would ignore his son’s maiming as he seemed to be doing. That thorough examination did not dwell on the arm behind Jaime’s back. Those calculating eyes did not flicker toward the place where Jaime’s missing hand would be. Brienne had coached him on the important people in King’s Landing. Varys was the eunuch, and was the Spider, and was the man who knew everything. Or not.

“Did Varys mention this?” He moved closer to the fire, to let Tywin Lannister see what had been done to him, and what had been done to his son.

Tywin pushed himself out of his chair, breath hissing between his teeth. “ _Who did this?_  If Lady Catelyn thinks—”

“Lady Catelyn freed me in exchange for her daughters. This was a mummer’s song. One Vargo Hoat, I believe.”

Tywin looked away, disgusted. “The man is no longer in my service.”

“Then you did know of this when your _man_ was the guilty party?” Jaime pushed, allowing the tension to feed his confidence. Tywin had not given away any doubt about Jaime’s identity, so far.

“Of course not. Hoat became too weak to be of use. Ser Gregor’s taken Harrenhal. The sellswords deserted their erstwhile captain almost to a man, and some of Lady Whent’s old people opened a postern gate. Clegane found Hoat sitting alone in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, half-mad with pain and fever from a wound that festered. His ear, I’m told.”

Jaime knew Brienne had left out much about her time at Harrenhal, but he knew she hated Hoat. She would want to know if he met justice. “Is he dead?”

“Soon. They have taken off his hands and feet, but Clegane seems amused by the way the Qohorik slobbers.” Tywin leaned against the mantle, but he peered at Jaime with a steely glint coloring the green. “It was a woman, I’m told. An ugly giant of a woman who bit the Goat’s ear clean off in defense of her honor. I didn’t think it true, of course. A story meant to amuse the gullible.”

Tywin thought it true now. How could he not when he must certainly know of Brienne’s presence within the Keep’s walls, of her involvement in his journey? Despite the sudden worry he felt from Tywin’s knowing, Jaime could only focus for a long moment on the image of Brienne fighting off an attacker with her teeth. She could do it, he had no doubt. But teeth? That meant she’d had no other weapon available. That meant Hoat had gotten close enough for her to sink those teeth into an ear. Very close.

How strong would a man have to be to get that close? Hoat must have had his own weapon that Brienne couldn’t wrestle away without undue risk. She would never let someone close enough to bite if she could have avoided it. And she hadn’t told him. He didn’t know why this upset him.

Tywin’s eyes went back to Jaime’s stump, and his mouth grew taut with fury. “We’ll have their heads. Every one. Can you use a sword with your left hand?”

There it was. Jaime’d been waiting for it. He could barely pull his boots on without Brienne’s help, but he held up his remaining hand. “Four fingers, a thumb, much like the other. Why shouldn’t it work as well?”

“Good.” His father sat again. “That is good.”

Tywin was about to change the subject, but he had not _seen_. This test was passed, and it gave Jaime much-needed confidence. Time to pursue his own agenda.

Jaime took the chair across from Tywin. “The Stark girls…where are they?”

The steely gaze returned. “Why are they of concern to you?”

Jaime leaned back, mimicking Tywin’s pose from before. “My arrangement with Lady Catelyn obviously died with her, but too many others know of it.” Jaime stared at his…at Ser Jaime’s father to buy a few seconds so he could remember the list of names Brienne had made him memorize. “Edmure Tully knows. And the Blackfish. I think it would do much to end this conflict if those girls were returned to the North as I vowed.”

Tywin was silent for a long while. “Your vow is not my vow.”

Jaime leaned forward, examining Tywin’s face. “What are you not telling me?”

Tywin seemed to consider what he was willing to reveal, even to his own son. Something changed in his expression, lightening his eyes. “Ser Addam’s gold cloaks are searching for Sansa Stark, and Varys has offered a reward. The King’s justice will be done.”

Nothing of Arya Stark then…but justice? “What justice does Sansa Stark merit?”

“Perhaps none, perhaps death. She may very well be involved in Joffrey’s murder.” That look still lingered, as if Tywin baited him somehow.

Truth, that was the best way to deceive. “I don’t understand.”

“Joffrey was poisoned.” Tywin waved his hand dismissively. “Sansa Stark fled in the chaos once Joffrey fell, and your brother has been taken into custody.”

“Tyrion?” Jaime could not understand why Ser Jaime’s brother would kill his own nephew, but there was much he didn’t know. Everything really. “Why would he do such a thing?”

Tywin looked disappointed in the idiocy of the question. “That is what must be discovered, if he is indeed guilty. He stands accused of regicide and kinslaying.  If he is innocent, he has nothing to fear.  First we must needs consider the evidence for and against him.”

The way Tywin said this made Jaime absolutely certain that Tyrion Lannister had no shot at justice whatsoever. People in this time really seemed to like blaming the most convenient person for regicide. Just as they had blamed Brienne.

“Renly Baratheon was murdered under strange circumstances, and we do not know what really happened since those around him never bothered to find out. Do we make the same mistake here? What if are there are bigger things in play?”

“Lord Renly was murdered by one of his own guards.” Tywin picked up a goblet of something and sipped, never taking his eyes from Jaime’s. “A large woman from Tarth. To my knowledge, there is but one daughter of Tarth at this time. Intriguing that a woman of her description appears not only at Harrenhal but also accompanied my son from White Harbor where neither had any reason to be.”

“That woman from Tarth is the reason I’m alive. She never harmed Lord Renly, and she is my trusted…ally.” Jaime knew he tread dangerous waters here.

Tywin continued to sip. “She served under Lord Renly and thereafter Lady Catelyn. You would have me believe that she has shifted loyalty for a third time? Such a woman could never be trusted.”

Defending Brienne would only make this worse, Jaime could tell. He needed a different tactic. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Father,” the word was strange and stuck on his tongue, “Lady Brienne is young. She is stubborn as a mule and quite clever, but young. She has been betrayed and has made foolish alliances in an attempt to recover. This time though, she is true. She is loyal to Lannister interests.”

“She is loyal to _you_. Is that what you mean to tell?” Tywin set his goblet down. “Or do you enquire about the Stark girls on her behalf?”

 _This_ Tywin saw. Not that his so-called son wore an entirely different body with different scars. No, he saw only the threat to his agenda. No more truth. If a lie were necessary to keep Brienne safe and in the city, so be it.

“She is loyal to me. There are things that happened that forged such loyalty between us. I was dying when my hand was taken. I wanted to die. She would not let me. She was loyal the entire time, and she is useful.”

Tywin merely stared for some time, a twitch at the corner of his mouth conveying either dismay or amusement. Jaime couldn’t tell, and even believed it might be intentional on Tywin’s part.

“Useful she may be.” Tywin brushed his finger along the rip of his goblet. “Curious that you speak of your loyalty to her in equal terms. I thought a Kingsguard was loyal only to the crown, or have you misremembered your vows in the convenient proximity of a woman?”

Jaime wanted to laugh at Tywin’s implication, but he suspected it would only serve as twisted evidence, however false. “There will be no bastards, _Father_. It isn’t possible.”

“Very well. She is your responsibility. And those vows will soon matter not.” He glanced at Jaime’s stump for only the second time. “You cannot serve in the Kingsguard without a sword hand—”

There was the second ball to drop. He had rehearsed this. “I can. I will soon fully recover from my injuries and will have the use of my left hand, and in fairness, Father, my left hand is better than any other man’s right.”

“Your state in the future is irrelevant. You cannot defend the King in your current condition, and you will therefore leave the Kingsguard. The gates have been opened—”

“Then they can be closed.” Jaime rose and looked down at his Father, though it felt like the other way around. “In my absence, you lost your king. Tell me you believe I would have allowed that to happen had I been here.”

Tywin’s tone was like the father he was talking to the small child Jaime wasn’t. “I am certain you would have tried to prevent it.”

“I would have succeeded. Now Tommen is king, and there is no one who will protect him better than I,” Jaime insisted. His promise to help Brienne find the Stark girls depended on having enough power and freedom in the city to gain information from those who might have leads. If Tywin removed him as Lord Commander, he might send him somewhere else, and without fulfilling his promise, he would never find the Red Woman Brienne knew of. He would never get home.

Tywin pressed on. “That was true, once. Now, you have a duty to House Lannister. You are the heir to Casterly Rock. That is where you should be. Tommen should accompany you, as your ward and squire. The Rock is where he’ll learn to be a Lannister, and I want him away from his mother. I mean to find a new husband for Cersei. Oberyn Martell perhaps, once I convince Lord Tyrell that the match does not threaten Highgarden. And it is past time you were wed. The Tyrells are now insisting that Margaery be wed to Tommen, but if I were to offer you instead—”

“ _No!_ ” Jaime shouted, genuinely afraid that giving in now would result in some banishment to the west where he would have a much harder time getting back home. And he couldn’t marry anyone. Not when his own Cersei waited for him. “I am the  _Lord Commander_ of the Kingsguard. I will remain so until I die.”

Tywin did not speak for such a long while. And then, “I wonder what your Lady Brienne would say to that? Was she not a Kingsguard herself? To a dead traitor?”’

So this was how Jaime’s existence in King’s Landing would be. Bargaining, bartering, stalling and dodging threats from Ser Jaime’s own family until he and Brienne could get out. He heard Tywin loud and clear.

He stiffened his shoulders and turned to face the door. “I will think on it. Father.”

“I know.”

* * *

 

The moment Jaime left Tywin’s solar, the two Kingsguard who had escorted him stood at attention from their posts at either side of the door.

“The Queen Regent commands that you attend her at once, Lord Commander.” One of the guard, the older one with the silver streak in his hair, nodded minutely.

Cersei. Not _his_ Cersei. His chest clenched from the intense desire to see her face, to brush his fingers along her cheek or the soft skin of her stomach, grown just a little softer from her post-war allowance of butter and sugar. Just as he fought for her during the war, he fought to return to her now.

He couldn’t see the imposter. He wasn’t sure how he might react or what he might do. Things that he would later regret, he was sure. He pressed his palm against his temple and feigned a wave of dizziness.

“That must wait. I need rest and some hot wine after my long journey. Help me to my quarters,” he commanded.

The men did not move, and the sound of boots stomping on stone echoed from the level below. There was a bridge there, linking Tywin’s tower to other parts of the Keep. He descended the stairs to that level, knowing it was the only way out, and he was met by the sight of four gold-cloaked soldiers crossing the bridge toward him. The Kingsguard stood behind him on the lowest stair. The gold-cloaks halted and stood silently.

“The Queen Regent commands,” the same Kingsguard repeated, his tone conveying some understanding of Jaime’s predicament, to his credit.

Jaime stood tall and nodded. If this couldn’t be delayed, he’d just have to steel himself and remember at every moment that this woman would not be his. He sighed deeply and extended his hand. “Lead on.”

He hoped none of them would think that strange, or chalk it up to his injuries. He needed a map of the entire Keep or he’d never be able to find his way around.

Fortunately the gold cloaks turned and moved back the way they’d come, over the bridge, through tall stone passageways, and into the south side of the complex overlooking the Bay. This part of the Keep still stood. It was a museum.

The clenching in his gut did not lessen as he approached the gilt double-doors of what he assumed to be the Queen’s apartments, flanked by more gold cloaks and another Kingsguard with an unfortunate attempt at a beard. The man’s eyes skated over him as he passed through the doors once they were held open.

The woman standing in front of the far window, outlined by afternoon sun, did not turn to face him. She was a shadow that revealed glimpses of cascading golden hair and rich black brocade.

Finally, she looked over her shoulder. “You have come at last.”

Her voice was the same, though he could hear the difference in accent just as Brienne had with him. Her face was the same, though the absence of crimson rouge on her lips made her seem paler. Her eyes swept over him, appraising him in such a familiar way, just like _his_ Cersei had done when he was released from the military hospital.

She looked back out the window. “Why couldn’t you have come sooner, to keep him safe? My boy…”

She didn’t come to him, to greet him even as a sister. Just like his Cersei. She never came to him. If she were his Cersei, he’d cross the marble distance, but she wasn’t.

“I came as fast as I could.” He felt immediately how untrue that was. Even had Ser Jaime lived and been the one to return, he’d gone back to Harrenhal to retrieve Brienne. This just made Jaime even more anxious to understand what had happened in that place, why Brienne was important enough to delay a return.

His chest clenched again as he stared at Cersei’s form. “It’s war out there.”

She finally turned away from the view and moved closer, resting her hands on the back of silken divan. “You cut your hair.”

“Lice,” he answered immediately, watching her shudder. He made the mistake of raising his right arm to brush his fingers through his short strands, but there were no fingers.

She recoiled, her hands dropping from the divan. “The Starks…”

“No. A man named Hoat.” _A bomb, it was a bomb._

That’s what he had said, whispered, when his Cersei had spotted his bandaged arm on the curb outside the hospital. She’d looked away and pressed her red lips together. _You are not whole_ , she’d said before ducking into the car she’d hired.

This Cersei’s fine features crumpled in pain, over his injury, he thought at first. “Tyrion killed him, Jaime. Just as he’d warned me. One day when I thought myself safe and happy he would turn my joy to ashes in my mouth, he said.”

Not about his injury. “Why would he kill Joffrey?”

“For a whore.” She returned her grip to divan, leaning forward. “He  _told_  me he was going to do it. Joff knew. As he was dying, he  _pointed_  at his murderer. At our twisted little monster of a brother. You’ll kill him for me, won’t you? You’ll avenge our son.”

Was Tyrion Lannister so depraved that every member of his family wanted him dead? No, Ser Jaime hadn’t. Brienne had said he’d spoken fondly of the imp.

Jaime stepped back. “He is still my brother.”

Her beautiful bow lips twisted in a sneer. “You will see. There’s to be a trial. When you hear all he did, you’ll want him dead as much as I do.” She extended one arm over the divan, beckoning him, tempting him.

Her green eyes were glassy and her lips parted, her breasts stretching the fabric of her dress as she breathed heavily. He stepped forward. She was beauty. She was Cersei. He stopped.

She let a tear fall, trickling down her porcelain cheek. “I was lost without you, Jaime. I was afraid the Starks would send me your head. I could not have borne that. I am not whole without you.”

His mind clouded. He knew he must resist her, though all he wanted was to take her hand and sink into her. But _she_ was not whole? He had lost his hand. He would never be whole again, had gone through hell in the war…no, she wasn’t talking about him, she was talking about Ser Jaime. _He_ had been a prisoner of his own war. _He_ had gone through hell, too.

Her fingers twitched. “You’re home now, Jaime. You’re home.”

It was like a dive into icy water. This was not home. He stepped back, and her arm dropped to her side as she turned into steel. This, too, was the same.

Her expression changed quickly from that coldness to one which resembled Tywin’s calculating stare in his solar. Even his Cersei resembled Tywin more than their own father in his own time. Tywin was power, right down to the blood.

“I’ve been told you are injured,” she said in a sweet voice. “Your head, is it not?”

Was she blaming his resistance of her on a head injury? He wanted to laugh, because short of the truth, that was about the only reason he would do so. He nodded instead. “My head and other things.”

“And you have a…what do you call her? She is not a septa and obviously not a maester, but I’m told she so kindly helped you back here.” Cersei’s brow rose in question, a smile of amusement appearing at the corners of her lips.

Hazards, hazards everywhere. Was she jealous? She’d obviously not heard a description of Brienne if that were the case. “The woman is a lady from Tarth, and yes, she kept me alive. I owe her a debt.” He forced himself to twist his face into a semblance of disgust. “You should see her, Sister. The sight would make you laugh for days. Big, ugly beast of a woman who thinks herself a knight.”

Her smile changed into something a little more real, but it faded just as quickly. She examined his face so carefully he could almost feel her touch on his skin. “You’re  _changed_. We’ll talk later. On the morrow. I have Sansa Stark’s maids in a tower cell, I need to question them.”

So she was after Sansa’s whereabouts, too. He’d been naïve to think that the search would be the hardest part. Now, it would be finding the Stark girls before everyone else in Westeros did.

“ _Leave me_ _,_ ” she said, turning away.

He did. She was temptation and disappointment, and he was world-weary.

“Help me to my quarters,” he ordered the Kingsguard once Cersei’s doors shut behind him, a repetition of his earlier request.

His tiredness was not a show, but he tried to memorize the passages and doorways as he was led along the thick Keep wall to another tower made of white stone. He dragged his hand against the wall as he followed one of the men up another winding stair, up and up to the very top that opened to a view even more magnificent that Tywin’s or even Cersei’s. The Bay on three sides, with pale sky and blue water reflecting each other.

“Lord Commander,” both men said before retreating down the stairs and leaving him alone. Or so he thought.

A servant in a brown tunic approached with a bowed head, saying nothing and clearly expecting orders. All he wanted was peace and a Pentoshi sandwich.

“Have food and wine sent, something hearty. And then leave me until morning.” His gaze never wavered from the calming waters, and he added not an afterthought but the thing he hadn’t realized he wanted. “And request that the Lady Brienne join me for the meal.”

He thought he was probably making a misstep. For all he knew, visitors weren’t even allowed in the Kingsguard tower, the _White Sword Tower,_ he needed to remember but he was the bloody Lord Commander. He could do what he wanted.

He stared at the water for a while longer, clumsily scrubbed himself clean in a hot bath laid out before a fire, then changed into a clean tunic he found in a white wardrobe against one wall. The quarters were minimal at best, though comfortable. Spacious and empty. There was a large bed with a feather-stuffed mattress Brienne would surely mock. Two chairs and a table next to one of the windows. A small privy attached to the side without a view.

He plopped onto the bed and waited until the sound of footsteps floated up beyond his closed door. A thin knock.

“Enter.”

The same servant came in followed by two more, all carrying trays of food and jugs of what was probably water and wine. They arranged it all on the table and window ledge next to it, bowing before they backed out, but they didn’t close the door.

He rose and claimed one of the chairs, popping a few chunks of fruit into his mouth as Brienne made her way up the stairs. Apart from expecting no one else, he could tell by the long gait that it was her.

It would soon be dusk, but the sunlight still flooded the space and landed full on her as she stepped through the door. He choked on the fruit as he failed to stifle a laugh.

She wore a dress. It only reached her ankles and was a truly unfortunate shade of yellow. He stopped laughing as he caught the mortified blush spreading over her skin, and there was a lot more of it on display than he’d seen apart from that night on the ship when she’d rescued him from the water. His eyes flickered to her chest.

“Stop laughing, Jaime. I know how I appear.” She glanced at everything but him, settling her gaze on the water as a fierce blush crept up her cheeks. “At least it’s not pink.”

“What?”

She ducked her head. “Never mind.”

“You look so uncomfortable.” His tone was light and full of humor. “Who managed to make you wear that thing?”

Still she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I made the mistake of bathing, and when I was done, there were no clothes in my chamber apart from this dress.”

He rose and moved to his wardrobe, fishing out another set of his. “Here, take these.”

She shook her head. “I cannot wear your clothes here. They would keep taking them anyway.”

She looked so miserable that he felt genuinely bad for her. He’d have to figure something out. “Well, blue would be a better color.”

She sighed deeply and moved her shoulders, as if she were trying to shed her foul mood. He resumed his seat and gestured across to the other chair. “Eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

They ate in silence for several long moments, devouring each dish in turn, and he had to admit it was decent fare. But it was so silent.

He leaned back in his chair. “You know what I miss right now?” He didn’t realize how melancholy his voice sounded until her brow furrowed deeply.

“Yes, Jaime. I know what you miss.” She speared a vegetable with her two-pronged fork.

 _Cersei_. Of course.

“Jazz,” he said, drawling out the z’s like a snake.

“What?”

“Jazz. And smokes.” He closed his eyes for a moment to remember the sweet feeling of foul smoke clogging his lungs.

When he opened them, the corner of her mouth was turned up in her version of a small smile.

“Do I amuse you now you’re forced to be a proper lady?” He grinned, hoping she wouldn’t clam up with offense.

She rolled her eyes. “Your nonsense is a welcome interruption, that is all.”

“Because you have no idea what I’m talking about which means it can’t make you worry about anything?”

The smile left. “Yes.”

Jaime was having none of that. After two tense meetings with supposed _family_ , he didn’t want more strain, not in this airy white room with good food and a friend. “Smokes. Tobacco. You haven’t found it yet, I don’t think, but it’s glorious. Rotten smelling leaves of a plant you roll up and light on fire, and you inhale the smoke.”

“That sounds terrible. What would anyone do that?” She set her fork down and stared at him.

He chuckled. “You probably never would. Straight-laced wench.”

“Jaime!” She nearly shouted in dismay.

“Told you I wasn’t going to stop. And Jazz…” he closed his eyes again and remembered the war tunes, the ones he’d heard in smoky basements and the shows put on for soldiers. “It’s music. Fast or slow, but there’s a beat like a heart and it gets to you. It’s liberty.”

She picked up her fork and pushed something around on her platter, not looking at him. “I enjoy music.”

“Do you now? That’s interesting.” She had never shared such an interest before, nothing so personal.

“No it isn’t.” She plowed on before he could disagree. “Did you learn anything of the Stark girls?”

His mood shattered, replaced by tension once more. He violently bit into a piece of bread. “Tywin has sent guards out to look for Sansa Stark. She fled once Joffrey was murdered, or maybe during. Cersei has Sansa’s maids in custody. That’s all I know apart from Tyrion being in prison for possibly murdering a king.”

Brienne looked at him for a long while. “Jaime, do you want to leave this place?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. He _had_ to get home. “Can’t we look for those girls outside of the city? Everyone here is out to get you.”

“What do you mean? I am no one of importance.”

He didn’t know how to explain that she was becoming very important because of him. Leverage. “Brienne…” he leaned forward on his elbows. “We have to be careful. I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s obviously complicated and dangerous. We aren’t the only ones looking for those girls.”

She adopted her pose of stalwart resolve. “We will be careful, but we _must_ find them. If your…if Lord Tyrion has knowledge of Sansa Stark’s whereabouts, then we must speak with him. And her maids.”

“That’s your idea of cautious?”

“What else do you suggest?” she challenged.

He huffed. “Nothing I suppose. I guess we’ll just have to find our way to the dungeons or wherever Tyrion is being held, under watch and lock of course, and thereafter sneak past Cersei and her dozens of guards to find where she’s keeping those maids. Easy.”

“It must be done, Jaime.” She was unmovable.

He stared at her blue eyes and thick lips, then the freckles trailing everywhere, all the way down the column of her throat and over her collarbone toward her chest. “I need a smoke, and you, wench, really need to hear some jazz.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's still reading! 
> 
> Next up, Loras is a little bitch, Varys skulks into play, and rumors swirl about tent-sharing.
> 
> Thanks forever and ever to Mikki for beta-ing!


	12. Chapter 12

 

_He was in a ditch, crawling on his stomach over muddy earth. The metal helmet covering half his ears made everything sound tinny and far away. A man screamed ahead of him. It might be Gil or Dick. His gut twisted when he hoped for a split second that it was Dick who’d met the bomb head on. He didn’t like Dick much._

_Disliking a man didn’t mean the man deserved to die. Jaime crawled forward, dropping flat at the sound of another tallboy on the way, wrapping his bloody arms over his head as if it would help. The bomb landed behind him, a hundred or more yards away. Nobody got ripped apart by that one. He hoped._

_The ditch ended, and he leapt to his feet and ran, far and fast through the gunfire. He barreled into Bloody Bill, knocking them both behind a low village wall. The gunfire arced over it, spattering the ground so close their toes might be next to go. A few enormous concrete pipes were stacked several yards away, meant to install a water line in the village before the war decided that was an idealistic notion._

_He grabbed Billy by the collar and half-dragged him to the pipes, shoving him inside one. His left calf burned like mad for a second. He’d been hit, but it was just a flesh wound. If it were worse, he wouldn’t be able to stand anymore. He crawled in behind Billy, shoving the boy’s sorry ass further in as the relentless storm of bullets tried to end them._

_A muffled poof sounded outside the pipe. A bomb was close. Concrete wouldn’t protect them from that, and they’d be crushed inside._

Move! Move, you bloody bastard! _Jaime shouted, the command echoing as Billy scrambled to get out the other side of the pipe. Jaime followed, his leg and lungs burning, and he fell out behind Billy just as the pipes rolled apart from the force of the bomb._

_He couldn’t hear anything. He vomited his meager meal of the day and fought the wave of dizziness as he watched the village wall crumble from the onslaught. A horde of trapped villagers spilled out and ran. A woman in the group spotted him next to Billy and rushed forward. She wore a bright yellow dress that gleamed in the sunlight._

No! _Jaime shouted._ Don’t come this way, go back!

_He felt more than heard the next bomb. The woman fell in a pool of blood that crept into the fibers of her dress. Billy shoved him to the ground, his face pressed into the mud as he lost consciousness._

* * *

Jaime jolted awake, sitting bolt upright in his unfamiliar bed in the stark, white room. His skin was slick with sweat as he struggled to suck in enough breath. His hand shook. The dreams were back. He had known they would be, but those weeks of freedom and good sleep had been an intoxicating pleasure. Now, he was alone once more.

He stood from the bed and took a long slug of water straight from a metal jug on his table, pouring the rest over his head once his thirst was sated. He looked toward the door. If he knew where Brienne had been quartered, he’d march straight there without a thought. He cursed himself for failing to find out.

Instead, he used his discarded shirt to dry himself of the sweat and water, then rifled through the wardrobe to dress in another of the simple tunics with a long coat over it. All the trousers…breeches…were either a deep red or glaring white. Garish. He chose red.

There was a stiff breeze coming in through the open window, and it helped him to shove the terrible memories back into their box inside his head. He kept it locked tight. Only the demons of night dared to open it when he was vulnerable.

The stone stairwell just outside his door beckoned. He followed it down a floor until he hit the top level of the long passageway set in the Keep’s outer walls. It seemed to stretch forever as he rushed on with no idea where he would go. Open arches like cloister windows lined the inside wall, and he passed door after door. Maybe Brienne was beyond one of them, but he had no way to tell.

He spotted the white cloaks reflecting slivers of moonlight before he realized where he was. The two men guarded Cersei’s rooms. He wanted to spin on his heels and run back the way he’d come, but one of the guards spotted him.

“Lord Commander?” the man questioned.

Jaime tried to calm his breathing and stood tall. “Yes.” What else was he supposed to say?

“Is everything all right?” the other man added with a raised brow as Jaime drew closer.

“Of course. I’m…making the rounds. Checking on the posts. We can’t be too careful after the wedding.” He knew he stumbled through the pitiful explanation, but it was the best he could do.

“Certainly, Lord Commander.”

Jaime cleared his throat. “Have there been any disturbances?”

“None, Lord Commander,” the first man rumbled in a voice like a chain smoker. “And Ser Meryn passed on his way to the King’s chambers. Nothing out of the ordinary this night.”

“Good news for once.” Jaime paused to examine each man’s face, trying to associate them with little details so he could remember once he learned their names. “I’ll just have a word with Ser Meryn. Send for me if anything should occur.”

“Of course, Lord Commander.” Cigar-man nodded, and the other copied him.

Jaime moved on quickly, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t run into anyone else. He ignored the stiffening of his spine as he left Cersei’s door behind. How easy it would be to tell the guards he needed a word with his sister, to discuss the King’s protection. How easy to wait until she extended her pale white hand once more and take it and touch her skin. But she wouldn’t be who he really wanted.

He slowed his steps a little, wandering along the empty passageways that overlooked the Keep and its numerous courtyards and inner buildings. He wondered why he never dreamed of Cersei. He had during the war, every night until dreams were replaced with terrors, and then the good ones never came back. She had been distant for five long years, with only one night together the whole time. She’d asked him to sleep separately then, too, so really it had been four hours instead of twelve. Four hours with her in five years.

He’d spent four hours with Brienne talking over dinner. When he’d told her that Tywin didn’t know where Sansa Stark was, she’d slammed the butt of her table knife onto the smooth wood. When he’d told her that Vargo Hoat was almost certainly dead by then, she’d gone pale. He’d asked why. She hadn’t answered, just asked how Hoat had died then exhaled with some odd relief when he’d said it was probably from having his limbs cut off.

She wouldn’t say anything when he’d asked about the ear. Her eyes just grew a deeper blue.

It was the same shade as the moonlit sky, visible to his right as he looked out the arches inside the castle compound. Carefully kept trees and garden paths filled a large space surrounded by the Keep walls on all sides. The godswood, he assumed.

He found a stairwell and descended, around and around until a heavy, iron-strapped door opened to the wood. Salty sea air was replaced by the freshness of greenery. He stepped into it and breathed and let it cleanse him of turmoil of his dreams.

He felt almost normal, at least for a one-handed veteran sent back in time, but then his heart started pounding wildly. He pressed his palm over his chest. What if he were having some sort of attack? He was far too young for that, but his body wasn’t what it once had been. Maybe there was shrapnel that the doctors had missed. His feet moved of their own volition towards the thickest clump of trees. A bench was there under the heavy boughs, and he sat on it hard enough to feel in his tail bone.

The rapid pulse in his veins did not subside, but he felt fine. Just anxious. Maybe that was it. Battle panic, they’d called it at the hospital. He’d never had it before, but he’d seen it as he watched men freeze and shake, barely able to breathe. He managed by hiding it away in his locked box.

He lay down on the bench, staring at the undersides of bows as they swayed slightly. His left arm dropped in weariness, flattening a few blades of grass. It felt good to touch the earth. He didn’t know why. He rose only to ease himself to the ground, sitting there with dew soaking into his stupid red breeches.

He skated his fingers through the green blades turned gray from night. They moved towards the base of the largest tree, and his heart sped up even more. On his knees, he crawled forward to the trunk without any idea why. His fingers touched the bark of a large root upending the soil around it. This tree had been there for ages.

There was a little space under the side of the root closest to him. He dug his hand in and felt a jolt like electricity speed through him. He dug in further, pulling decomposed matter away in clumps, then pure dirt filled with pill bugs and worms.

Jaime had no idea how, but he understood exactly what hid itself beneath the ground, protected by the ancient root. He lay on his stomach, cursing the lack of a battery-fueled torch as he dug down. The thin moonlight filtering through the boughs was just enough to let him see it before his skin touched it, a pock-marked buried root no thicker than his thumb and white as the walls of his chamber.

White oak. No, weirwood. There wasn’t supposed to be any left this far south. It had hidden itself away, to save itself maybe. Jaime scoffed at the absurd notion, as if the root had sentience.

But he’d been sent through time by touching that same wood. What if…

He yanked his hand back. What if it worked again, and he didn’t need the Red Woman? What if he just touched it and woke up in the modern city with a splitting headache and the fumes of petrol swirling around him? He inched his hand closer. If he left now, he would break his promise to Brienne. She had saved his life.

She was clever and stubborn as the most unruly ass ever was. She would find the Stark girls with or without him, it would just take her longer. She didn’t need him. And wouldn’t it be right to return to his Cersei when she was all alone in Lannisport? She needed him. He could go back and forget about commanding other people and settle. Maybe open a shop or something mundane like Bloody Bill had. Live a quiet life.

His fingers brushed the white wood without his permission. He jerked them back instantly, waiting to feel that horrible disorientation that meant he was going home, but there was nothing. He touched the wood purposefully. _Nothing._ He was flooded with a mix of sinking disappointment and profound relief which he did not understand.

The root was dead. Or it was not the weirwood at all but the Red Men’s antics that had sent him back. He did need the Red Woman. He touched the wood a third time, flicking it in disgust, but this time, his vision went black, and he fell flat on the ground.

He gasped for air. It wasn’t time, he wasn’t ready to go home. He wasn’t ready to open a shop, and there was Brienne…she shouldn’t be left alone in this place when he was responsible for her.

Colors filled his mind, forming into vibrant images of a man he somehow knew had a lisp though he heard nothing but a mad rush of wind in his head. Faceless men grabbing Brienne, and the sound flooded in as she roared in anger then in fear. He felt it inside him, the need to stop them from harming her. _Sapphires_ , he heard in a twisted version of his own voice. _Sapphires_. Brienne’s screams, then silence and her big blue eyes fixing on him as she was let go.

A hideous warrior with a long, curved knife. The knife swinging through the air, his own scream echoing in the night, his severed hand limp in front of him. Blood pouring from his stump. Brienne’s face an inch away for days and days and days. Her gentle hands all over him as he lay in stupor. Her long fingers grasping his chin, forcing him to eat. The insanely high walls of a strange place. Harrenhal. The darkness abated.

Jaime’s vision cleared, and his gaze fixed on a drop of dew hanging from a branch. It fell, right to the middle of his forehead. The images didn’t form a dream but a memory. Not his, though. Not his. It was just as Brienne had told him on the ship, though she'd left out much.

He rolled onto his side, waiting for his body and mind to sync enough to stand. A pair of pudgy feet encased in leather slippers stood a yard or so away, pointed toward him. He craned his neck to see the person’s face. A man, fat as his feet with an egg-shaped bald head and a tiny, sly smile at the corner of his slick lips. A cloud of lilac perfume seemed to waft from within the man’s voluminous purple robe.

Jaime’s legs wobbled as he made his way to his feet, standing far taller than the ridiculous man. He said nothing, waiting for the man to call him _Lord Commander_ and somehow give away his identity.

The man only smiled wider and remained silent for too long. Finally, “Ser Loras has been looking for your lady companion. He will continue that search on the morrow.”

A test, again. Jaime was so tired of these tests. “Then he has not found her.” _There, that gave nothing important away._

“Not as yet.” The man glanced over Jaime’s entire body in a dramatic sweep, then circled him to sit on the bench. “I had her quarters moved. Close to yours, as it happens. Join me.”

Jaime did. _Might as well_.

The man continued. “Ser Loras will be a problem if he is not handled carefully.”

Did this man have some established business with Ser Jaime? “For you or for me?”

“For us both.” The man peered at him.

“He is under my command,” Jaime stated confidently.

The man flashed a canny smirk that Jaime would have labeled coy if worn by a woman. “Come now, we both know you have no memory of who is or is not under your command.”

Jaime struggled to mask his shock. No one had said anything, no one had betrayed even a hint that they doubted him. Why this man?

“I am Varys, by the way. Really, this is very satisfying. It’s been so long since I’ve had to introduce myself to anyone at all.” The man’s lips curved into a thin smile as he removed a tiny glass vial from somewhere in his sleeve and sniffed the contents.

Varys. The eunuch. The Spider.

Perhaps a sliver of truth would be better than lies. Varys obviously knew too much already. “How did you know?”

“I dislike answering that question, but I’ll make an exception. I have…ways, clearly.” Varys faced him, his chubby body wedging itself into the corner of the bench. “I knew almost immediately when you’d been captured in the Riverlands, and I knew precisely when you attempted escape and when Lady Catelyn released you. I knew who she sent with you. I did not know for some weeks that you had been captured by Hoat. I did not know he took your hand.”

Jaime flinched and almost unconsciously rubbed his stump with his fingers. The weirwood memory felt nearly as vivid as his own memory of the loss. Two hands taken, one stump left. Had Varys seen him collapse from the hallucination, or whatever it was? Had he cried out in that state and summoned the Spider from his web?

He had to choose his words carefully. “Lord Tywin…my father, told me you sent men after me.”

Varys nodded. “I did. I only heard word of your whereabouts once you were taken to Harrenhal. Lord Bolton’s men can be bought as easily as anyone else. I knew you were given an escort to return here, and thereafter, you disappeared.”

Varys’ hairless brow rose, creating a lump a flesh melting into his forehead.

Jaime would give no explanation. He stared out into the wood with as neutral an expression as he could muster.

“The Lady Brienne, however. Very interesting. I received word that she rode into the north alone. And then, to my great surprise, she appeared in White Harbor weeks later with you in her company. How is that?” Varys pressed with a tone full of glee.

Jaime thought this man who made his business to know everything must only receive joy from _not_ knowing, from the discovery. It must be exciting.

The only way he could avoid the questions was to stick with the story of his injury. “I was…ill. Feverish and injured. We were deep in the woods when I grew too sick to ride. Lady Brienne worried that I would not survive. She demanded that our company stop and find shelter for me, but the men rebelled when they learned my father’s men were marching north. If I did not live, they knew they would be slaughtered by the first Lannister men they met.

“Lady Brienne hoped we would be left behind if she told them I was nearly dead, but instead, I was put in a cart, and we were taken to Darry where the men thought they might find a maester. He would only help me if Lady Brienne promised to take him north through the Neck to find his brother. We had no choice but to agree, as my fever was growing worse. Lady Brienne told Lord Bolton’s men that I had died, and they marched on as we had hoped. And she was not alone as she rode. Your…informers must have seen her riding ahead of the cart the maester drove, with me in the back.

“We parted from the maester in Greywater Watch, and once I was recovered enough to ride, we decided it would be safer to press north and take a sea route from White Harbor rather than fight our way south for a second time.” Jaime finished his tale, hoping the glimmers of truth would make it reasonably plausible to Varys’ canny ears.

“I see,” Varys finally said with no inflection. He peered out at the trees, bathed in purple light the color of his robe. It would be dawn soon. “You were more significantly injured than I had realized.”

Jaime let out a rueful chuckle. “It wasn’t the most enjoyable time. But I am recovered.”

“There was word once you were on your way here that you had received a serious blow to the head. You are _not_ yet recovered. I found you here collapsed upon the ground.” Varys sighed deeply. “How little do you remember?”

“It’s that obvious?” Jaime turned to appraise the pale egg of a man.

“I would not say so, but I pay close attention. As you see.” Varys let the corner of his mouth twitch. “It is clear to me that you recall your family, but beyond that…I would say you have become quite the mummer.”

“Perhaps,” Jaime replied noncommittally.

“And the Lady Brienne is your guide, no?”

“If you must affix a title to her, I suppose so.” Jaime shrugged. He was unwilling to give Varys any more than that, that Brienne was _more_.

“You are indebted to her.” It was not a question.  

“Many times over.”

Varys sighed, but it seemed more a pause between subjects than an expression of dismay. “You will wish to know that Ser Loras intends to demand an audience with the King to claim that you are too unwell to lead the Kingsguard.”

Jaime scoffed. If this, too, was a test, he could pass it. “You mean an audience with the _Queen_. Cersei will never remove me from my position.”

“While that is true, Ser Loras is upsetting the balance. He spent the evening demanding from anyone who would listen that the Lady Kingslayer be imprisoned and tried for treason.” Varys glanced at him again. He was more interested in this response, Jaime could tell.

“She is innocent of that crime,” he insisted. “I will not see her punished to appease a crazed _boy_.”

“I can see that you won’t.” Varys placed a clammy hand on Jaime’s shoulder, using it as leverage to rise, though the weird squeeze suggested reinforcement of the seriousness of his words. “You must distance yourself from her. Your dependence is clear after only a single day of your return, and there _will_ be consequences. Already, rumors have spread. You may have a poor memory, but you are not stupid. Think on what that means.”

Varys turned to go, but Jaime stood and circled him. “What rumors?”

The man’s face crinkled in way that made Jaime feel pitied. He hated that. “It is known that you shared a cabin with her on that ship, and a tent on the road here. It has been seen that you are in her company at every spare moment. What rumors do you think fly between the men who saw you?”

Jaime’s hand clenched into a fist. “It’s not like that.”

“That may be, but no one will care for truth when the fantasy is so much more pleasing.” Varys’ words grated like steel on steel. “The Kingslayer and his Kingslayer Lady. The celibate Lord Commander and the Maid of Tarth. Kingslayer’s Whore, they’re calling her. It has been one day. Imagine what will happen after many.”

Varys stepped to one side to leave, but again Jaime stopped him. “What is it that you want, Lord Varys? Everyone has some deep desire, and as you have yet to give away my true state, what is it that you want from _me_?”

“I want what I have always wanted, from any man.” Varys stared with eyes turned from soft to steel. “Peace.”

Jaime smirked this time. “Peace is merciless.”

“That it is, Lord Commander.” Varys leaned in close, his lilac scent nearly overpowering. “You may have a clouded mind, but your understanding has not faded. If you are found unfit to remain in the Kingsguard, many things will be in jeopardy. Your replacement will not serve peace. He will serve the Queen. You _must_ maintain your position. Do you understand?”

“I will handle Ser Loras,” Jaime promised.

Varys only laughed. “Ser Loras is a problem because he wants your Lady dead and calls attention to her. He is a petty child. _She_ is the danger. If there were evidence that she is your mistress, _that_ will at least remove you from the Kingsguard no matter how unbelievable it might be, if it doesn’t remove your head. And hers.”

One part was true. No one would believe that the golden Ser Jaime would risk his status for an ugly backwoods wench. But as Varys had said, it might not matter if they really believed it, if the story were juicy enough to spread.

“Yes, Lord Varys. I understand.”

Varys nodded. “We will speak again, soon.” He glanced over his shoulder once he was a few yards away. “In the east wall of this wood, there is an iron-bound door. It leads to a passage, and in the middle of the passage is another door that leads to a training yard. If you are unable to manage without Lady Brienne’s…guidance, you would best meet there and there only.”

He moved away then, fluttering on light feet over the pathway until he disappeared in a trail of drugstore perfume.

Jaime was exhausted. He felt like he would always be that way, so he breathed deeply of the near-dawn humid air, but it did nothing to make him more at ease. If he had to hide his long conversations with Brienne, she wouldn’t be around to help him understand things or stop him from saying something idiotic. How could they find Sansa Stark’s trail if they couldn’t associate? Worse, he was entirely alone in this place if not for her. His Cersei was a fantasy. His war buddies were not yet born but simultaneously led their own dull lives. He was alone.

He turned east, and there in the wall as Varys had said was an iron-bound door. He heaved it open and entered a windowless passage that led under a wall separating the wood from whatever lay on the other side.

He heard the clamor of metal. Beyond the next, smaller door was a large chamber, lit by torches along the walls and filled with racks of weapons. On second glance, most of the weapons were made of wood or had dull blades.

Someone was at the far end, bashing away at a dummy strapped to a post. He stepped a little closer and saw her. He’d know her anywhere despite the dim, flickering light. She’d somehow found a man’s shirt and breeches to wear. They looked like his servants’ garb, and he wondered if she’d coerced another servant into giving up his clothes. It would be like her to do something that ridiculous just to get out of a dress.

He watched her move for a few moments, graceful with her sword as she was not anywhere else. All he wanted at that moment was to be back in the freezing northern wood where he could rest on the hard ground with his spine pressed against hers, because he wouldn’t be alone.

“You couldn’t sleep either?” he finally called out to avoid scaring her.

It didn’t work. She spun around and pointed her sword at him as if he were an enemy, taking a moment to comprehend the situation, her blue eyes wide and fixed on his face. They calmed him like the sea outside his window, only the sea had done nothing to fend off the terrors. His nerves were raw from them and from whatever had happened with the weirwood and from his conversation with Varys.

She let her sword arm fall to her side as she stood tall. “Are you ill?”

He shook his head. “I just feel like hells.”

“Is that not the same?” She stepped closer, close enough to see the sweat soaking her shirt and the red stain of exertion on her cheeks.

What was he supposed to tell her? That he was still crippled by nights spent alone, like a pathetic little boy? That he’d wanted to burst into Cersei’s rooms and strip her naked? That Varys’ words had made him feel real fear for his situation in this place? Brienne wouldn’t be shocked by those things anymore, but she might be from the insinuations about their _affair_. What a ridiculous idea, though Jaime fully saw the danger in it. He’d have to tell her. But not yet, not when she would probably be so mortified that she’d shut down and refuse to speak for ages. He couldn’t handle silence just then.

“I saw something,” he finally said. “Memories.”

She stared at him with those eyes, his pulse slowing closer to normal the longer she looked. “How can you _see_ memories, Jaime?”

He met her gaze. “I was in the wood. I found a weirwood root, and when I touched it, I saw _his_ memories. I know they were.”

She flinched for some reason. “What did you see?”

“I saw you. And who I think is Vargo Hoat, and a man with a long knife. It was as you told me. Men were taking you. I… _he_ said something, and they let you be, and they cut off his hand. We rode to Harrenhal. I woke up. Or whatever that was.”

Brienne’s eyes darkened a shade, and the furrow between them appeared. She was silent for a long time before she swallowed thickly and stood even taller. She was protecting herself, he knew. “When you touched the wood, did you hope to return to your own world?”

He knew, too, what she really meant. _How disappointed are you that it didn’t happen?_

He thought of the shop. He’d make a terrible shop owner. It wasn’t as if that were the only thing he could ever do once he returned, but beyond being with Cersei, he just couldn’t imagine something else. Just a shop like Bloody Bill kept, safe and dull.

He had a sort of revelation, standing a yard away from the big ugly woman he now depended on so much. He wanted to resent her, blame her.

He understood, suddenly, that he was afraid to go home. It had been just like that in Essos at war, though he hadn’t let himself admit it. He was nothing without battle. He knew nothing but command and blood and death. What would he be _after_? What was home for a man like him?

There was no home, and there would be no quiet life in any sense, no matter where he was. Not when the dreams would never go away.

“I was relieved it didn’t happen,” he finally said, letting her make of it what she would.

Her head tilted, and the furrow grew deeper. “Jaime…” she said, trailing off.

Pathetic Jaime. Weak Jaime. Disappointing Jaime. Sleepless Jaime. He was so tired, drained of everything. It was like in the wood when his feet moved before he told them to. He crossed the yard to her and threaded his arms under hers to wrap around her back, pressing his face into her sweat-covered thick neck.

He heard the small gasp she let out, surprise and probably rage. But she didn’t push him away. She let him rest there until the sword clattered to the stone floor and he felt her strong hands rest gently on his shoulders.

“I can’t sleep without you,” he mumbled with a thick tongue.

“I cannot stay with you and you cannot stay with me,” she reminded, though her words were so soft, letting him down easy. Confirming what Varys had said.

“I know.” Through her thin shirt, she felt so warm, much warmer than she had on the ship when he’d clung to her as they were hauled out of the water. Her shirt then had been thinner still. Transparent. He felt his cock stir. He had gone too long without relief, and his earlier thoughts of Cersei naked were probably haunting him still.

He lifted his head from her shoulder and stepped back, suddenly embarrassed, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry for the familiarity.”

“It’s…it’s all right.” She bent to pick up the sword and immediately turned away.

It wasn’t all right, but if this dim space were the only place where they could just _be_ , then it would have to be enough. He moved to a rack of dull swords and gripped one with stiff fingers.

It took him a second to remember his normal voice, the almost-sly one. “I seem to recall a certain lesson in the woods which I failed miserably. Care for another go?”

She stiffly turned in his direction, spotting the sword in his hand. “You might be hopeless.”

“Yes,” he said. “I might be.” It came out low and deep and so much more serious than he wanted.

She blinked. “Your grip is too low.” She hefted her sword into the air and balanced it on her forearm. “Fix it, and I will teach you to parry.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What?”

“I mean _wench_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always thanks to Mikki for making this story so much better!
> 
> Next up, Tommen is adorable, Brienne gets into a spot of trouble, and Cersei torments one and all.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Holiday stuff, work stuff. Tryptophan coma. I'm trying to get back on track with more regular updates, so fingers crossed!

 

The boy on the altar was not his son. Jaime stood over the body with its waxen skin and slowly shriveling features and felt next to nothing.

This was the last day he could see Joffrey Baratheon before the septons laid him to rest, and it seemed to be a long-overdue event. The boy king’s cheeks were sunken, and instead of emerald Lannister eyes, there were stones fitted to his sockets with crudely painted eyes on them instead. It was hard to look at. Death was always hard to look at, but this was a boy who was supposed to be his son.

Maybe he felt unsettled because this boy had been a monster. He’d heard whispers in the passageways, among the Lannister guards on the road, but he knew from the books that King Joffrey, however brief his reign, had been simply bad. Of course, this could be another instance of revision by the victor, but he didn’t think so. Even in death, Joffrey looked like he was waiting to murder someone from beyond the grave.

Jaime turned away from the altar and didn’t look back as he left the sept. It was all for show, he told himself. He was meant to mourn a nephew who had been his king. This was now accomplished, and anyone who bothered to watch could report that his Lannister duty was done. There were more important things to pursue, like getting Cersei to reveal where she was keeping Sansa Stark’s maids.

And there was the matter of his “brother.” A trial had begun that morning, and Jaime had quietly observed from the back after a tense exchange with one of the Kingsguard, Boros or Balon? He couldn’t keep them straight. Regardless, the sniveling fellow had moaned about something or other, so Jaime had made him King Tommen’s food taster. Boros, that was it; the coward, or so he’d heard.

Funny how he had the power to demote a man when he hadn’t even met the king. Another king who was his son but not his son. He wasn’t thinking about that king though, he was thinking about Tyrion Lannister. No heads had turned when Jaime had crept into the trial, no one altered their focus just for him, the one-handed Lord Commander in his flowing white cape. The testimonies were far too fascinating for that. But Tyrion himself, he glanced back, just once as if he had been waiting for his brother. Their eyes met, and Jaime tried so hard to communicate that he didn’t know what to do, that he wasn’t even the brother he should be, but Tyrion merely arched a brow and turned away.

Tyrion was being set up. It was so obvious that Jaime didn’t know whether to laugh like a maniac or personally question everyone watching the trial on how they could possibly believe the absurd _evidence_ put forth. Jaime didn’t know who Tyrion was, what kind of man he was, but he knew by watching the dwarf’s reactions and expressions, and from the stories Brienne had told him that Tyrion was the furthest thing from stupid. And stupid he would have to be to commit regicide at a wedding and stick around to watch the chaos.

This was such a farce. Maybe it was Tywin trying to finally get rid of his unwanted son, or maybe Tyrion had other enemies of his own. No matter. It seemed that Sansa Stark was the key to Tyrion’s trial just as she was to Brienne’s oath and his own return home. The one he didn’t want at the moment.

Jaime stopped walking the endless passages of the Keep. He felt frayed like an old rope pulled taught, strands snapping one by one from the tension. He shouldn’t be running away from his life like this, even if he had never intended to abandon that life in the first place. _Not_ running back was running away.

He stood there as a warm breeze swept through archways and allowed himself to acknowledge that he didn’t _want_ to go back. Yet. It was one thing to say it to Brienne, and another entirely to say it to himself inside the inescapable mire of his own mind. He couldn’t even pretend he didn’t know _why_ he wanted to stay, though it was selfish and probably childish, too.

Here he was needed. He could be useful even if he felt utterly confused by everything. He liked being Ser Jaime Lannister who commanded men and safeguarded kings. A man who made important decisions and fulfilled vows. It felt right.

He hurried his steps in another direction, towards the throne room, but there was a stop to be made first.

He felt eyes on him as he stepped into the godswood from the narrow stone stairwell. There was no hint of lilac perfume, no flash of brightly-colored robes creeping about, though Jaime fully expected Varys to be there somehow. No, it was just a bird, a raven with feathers black as night perched on a branch. He stared at it as the creature tilted its head and examined him with beady black eyes. It looked to the ground.

The weirwood root was buried under the tree where the raven perched. Just coincidence. The stupid bird wasn’t gesturing for him to approach it again. Thinking a bird could even do that was madness.

He hurried through the wood to the passage leading to the training yard, hoping Brienne would be there. She was restless and eager to be more active in her search for the Stark girls, but she’d promised to stay out of sight until he figured out how to avoid the consequences Varys had detailed.

He heard the clanging of metal before he opened the door. It stopped at the squeak of the hinges.

“It’s me.” He closed the door and barred it behind him before moving into the open circle of the dimly-lit yard.

She stood next to the practice dummies, her chest heaving and her right hand clutching the hilt of an enormous sword. Her eyes glowed blue even in the yellow light of the torches on the walls.

He chuckled, echoing a moment free of worry. “You’re nothing if not dedicated.”

“Have you learned anything?” she demanded, placing the sword on a rack and approaching him as she wiped her face with her sleeve.

“And direct,” he grumbled.

“What is it? The trial?” She kept her eyes on him as she leaned against the edge of a table where a jug of water rested.

At least he had _someone_ to talk to with honesty. He would always be grateful for that, and it was more than he could say of his life _before_. Even in the war, he had never been completely honest with anyone about his past, because how could he tell his buddies he liked to fuck his sister? They wouldn’t have followed his command if they had known. He was certain of that.

But Brienne knew, and she still talked to him. He knew it wasn’t because she didn’t care, but she somehow saw past it. Maybe there was a small part of her as stupid as most people thought her to be. Or maybe she was just kind.

He let it out all at once. “It’s a farce, wench. Tyrion is going to be found guilty of a murder he didn’t commit. I’d wonder if Joffrey was poisoned just to instigate this theater of justice, but there would be easier ways to get rid of my brother than to disrupt the balance of an entire monarchy.”

He thought she’d call him an idiot, or at least begin talk of tactics, but instead, she let the corner of her mouth turn up in one of her excuses for a smile. It only lasted a second before she seemed to realize it, and then it was replaced by a fierce grimace.

“What was that for?” he pressed, stepping closer to lean his hip against the table.

“Nothing.”

“Yes it was. You smiled and then you decided your own humor offended you.” He examined her lips to see if she’d smile again, but they were pressed tightly together. “Tell me.”

“It was nothing,” she insisted. “Was there mention of Sansa?”

Jaime sighed, determined to coax a full laugh out of her someday. “Briefly. She’s vanished, Brienne, no trace. So many are looking for her that you’d think there’d be a sighting.”

“She has been hidden. We must learn who has aided her, for she could not accomplish such a thing herself.” Her eyes took on a faraway look.

“Tell me,” he demanded again, though it was a different context entirely.

“Lord Tyrion,” she said slowly, still not looking at him. “Sansa is his wife, yet there was only brief mention of her today? That is odd.”

“She would be called as a witness, but again, she’s _gone_ , Brienne.”

“Yes, but how?” She met his gaze and turned her body to match his leaning posture against the table. “She is barely more than a girl. Joffrey’s murder was either planned by a novice or meant to blame Lord Tyrion, as you said.”

“And?”

“Perhaps your…brother, believes Sansa to have been involved. What if he smuggled her from the city or is hiding her somewhere, taking the blame for himself?” She peered at him with some strange hope lingering in her eyes.

“How romantic.” Jaime sneered. “Don’t tell me you actually believe that to be possible. By all accounts, in a city where everyone hates everyone, no one hates more than a Stark hates a Lannister. You know what they are blamed for, what they did. I can’t even fault them for it.”

She crossed her arms over her thin shirt. “Then tell me what to look for. If there is no news within a day or so, I will have to begin searching outside King’s Landing.”

Jaime abandoned his casual posture as well, standing bolt upright and grimacing almost as fiercely as she was wont. She said _I_ will have to leave. Not _we_. “Would you so easily leave me here, alone, with no one?”

Her gaze snapped to his. “You would accompany me despite your place here?”

He felt like snarling, so he did. “I swore to you that I would help find those girls. Of course I would.”

She snarled right back, but there was odd uncertainty on her face. “In exchange for the Red Woman, was that not the bargain?”

“It was, but—”

“She is in Dragonstone.” Brienne’s words were clipped and harsh. “She remains with Stannis Baratheon. Kingslayer.”

“Him or me?” Jaime nearly shouted.

She said nothing.

“Him or me, Brienne?” He did shout then.

She took a shallow breathe and turned her face away. “Him and _him_.”

Jaime felt almost offended by the label, though it wasn’t his by right. Or was it her reminder that he wasn’t the real Jaime Lannister that hurt? He cleared his throat. “You said he had honor.”

“He does. He _did_. But he slayed a king no matter the honorable reason.”

“You are the most pigheaded women I’ve ever met.”

“Do not mock me,” she reminded in the world-weary tone he despised.

“I wasn’t, and you’d better learn soon how to tell mockery from truth. You _are_ pigheaded. You do not have the head of a pig, you bloody wench.”

“Do not call me that!” She pushed him with both hands on his chest.

He stumbled just a little, stepping so close once he recovered that her breath heated his lips. He grabbed her wrist when she tried to move away. “I have done nothing to betray my _oath_ to you. I can barely function in this place, yet I continue to pursue information about those damned girls, for _you_! And because they will probably be murdered if they’re found by anyone else in this city. I could have learned where the bloody Red Woman was on my own, but I haven’t, because I planned to keep my promise, so give me just a smidge of credit, you pigheaded wench.”

She deflated like a sad birthday balloon, and he suddenly didn’t want to deal with her morose face or judgmental prattling about honor.

His fingers stroked the skin of her wrist as he stepped away. It was surprisingly delicate, he thought. And warm. He stalked toward the door, glaring back over his shoulder. “And for your information, I was going to find Varys to see if he knows where Sansa’s maids are being kept. You can thank me later.”

He slammed the door behind him and felt better for it. More childish behavior, but he couldn’t be bothered to care at the moment. Brienne was the only person he could talk to and the only person who could infuriate him this much. It was a stupid paradox.

The passageways and courtyards were a maze inside the Keep, but he could see the throne room looming at every turn and could at least find his way. Was is too much to ask that Brienne have _some_ faith in him? He’d have to get Varys alone somehow, perhaps arrange a meeting in the godswood. Brienne really should be nicer about this. It wasn’t as if he’d had smooth sailing so far. Ungrateful wench.

He climbed the steps to the throne room and waited as guards opened the door, the breeze generated from the swinging panels making his cloak lift like a flying carpet. With all the flowing blood in Westeros, it was ridiculous to make a guard’s cloak white.

Instead of the near-empty expanse he’d expected, the throne room hosted several dozen people standing before the dais on which the enormous seat of royalty rested. He’d seen it before, of course. This space, too, was a museum, though most of it had been reconstructed a hundred or so years ago. Or hundreds in the future…it was so hard to keep track of now. But the throne was the same, all gnarled metal and sharp points.

The king sat upon it. He looked so small and bewildered, just a child made a marionette at the mercy of anyone who could pull his strings. Tywin sat in a crimson-cushioned chair to the king’s right, Cersei in a matching chair to the left. A sneering Loras Tyrell and another Kingsguard he hadn’t yet met stood below them all.

Men with carefully-folded parchments or bags of coin approached Tywin one by one as the King observed from the throne’s advantage of height. No one consulted him, spoke with him. No one pretended he wasn’t a pawn.

As Jaime watched, a squire or servant or something dripped hot wax onto a parchment and carried it from Tywin to the king on a gold platter. The boy’s small hand reached out and pressed his ring into the wax, a smile on his innocent face, and that was that. The word of a king made law. The king who was not his son.

Jaime moved forward through the people, standing in the row of Kingsguard without anyone stopping him, because he knew that was his place.

“Uncle Jaime!” Tommen cried out upon seeing him.

Tywin twisted in his seat to send a withering look to his grandson. Tommen bowed his head until Tywin turned his attention elsewhere, but the boy sent a small smile Jaime’s way. He met Tommen’s gaze and returned the smile, and it was easy and natural, and he felt some sort of strange kinship to him, a desire to protect, but still. Tommen was _not_ his son.

He broke the gaze and caught Cersei’s eye by accident. She raised a perfectly-arched brow. Her beauty seemed misplaced in this dreary expanse. She was a portrait of his old dreams, a reminder of all he had lost and all he hoped to return to. Someday, when he was ready.

“Enough for today,” Tywin’s booming voice echoed between the vast pillars.

He stood as the people dispersed, some disgruntled, some relieved, judging by their various expressions. He waved his hand to summon an ever-lurking servant who glided over with a goblet. Tywin drank deeply before setting his gaze on Jaime.

“Have you finally reclaimed your guard duty, or is your head injury still too bothersome for such an exacting task?” Another draw from the goblet, but Tywin’s gaze never broke.

Jaime tilted his head the way Brienne did right before she was going to say something annoying. “I’m perfectly fit, Father. Good thing, too, since so many have failed their _exacting tasks_.”

“Tommen, come.” Cersei rose and stepped from the dais next to Tywin.

“Can’t I use my seal more, Mother? Please?” The boy’s high-pitched child voice barely reached the foot of the throne.

“There will always be more. Now, it is time for your supper. You can make Ser Boros eat figs.” She began to glide away but halted near Jaime. A purposeful move, he knew.

“He hates figs,” Tommen called down as he began to carefully descend the absurd sharp steps of the throne.

Jaime watched with concern, the other guards barely glancing at the king they were sworn to protect.

“Yes, he does.” Cersei smiled.

He couldn’t see her as he watched Tommen, but he knew that tone. It, too, was the same as his own Cersei’s familiar hints of amusement. It was hard to remember, because he’d just want her.

Tommen tripped. He very nearly fell straight into a protruding blade that wouldn’t kill him but would certainly cause a deep gash. Jaime lunged forward and grabbed the boy’s arm, drawing Tommen into the shield of his body as he took the wound on his own forearm instead.

He immediately sank to one knee and examined the boy. “Are you all right?”

Tommen nodded, but eyed the throne’s blade with a watery gaze. Jaime rose and faced Loras Tyrell and the mystery guard.

“You were closer than I. You can’t even protect your king from an unmoving piece of furniture, you worthless shits.”

Loras glared daggers at him, but the other nodded passively, saying nothing, but glancing lightning-quick at Cersei for some reason. She did not look amused, stepping forward to claim Tommen for herself as she wrapped her arms around his thin shoulders.

Jaime moved forward, now determined to see Tommen safely to wherever he was meant to be, and caught Tywin peering at him, as calculating and judgmental as he was the last time. Jaime couldn’t quite tell, but he thought he saw approval.

Varys would have to wait. He’d return for the fat man soon enough. He didn’t like the look in Loras’ eye, or the complacent posture of the other one. He’d have to learn who he was as soon as possible.

They walked silently through the most private and protected passageways, toward the royal apartments where he’d visited Cersei. The two guards were behind them, but he stayed close to Tommen who seemed to be over his momentary dismay. That Targaryen king had been a shit leader to build a throne out of sharp swords, no matter how convincing his philosophy had been. A throne could be uncomfortable without trying to kill you.

They reached the king’s chamber quickly, and another set of Kingsguard he didn’t know opened the door. Jaime thought they would enter and remain while Tommen ate, but Cersei shuffled her son inside alone.

Tommen turned to him before he was shut in however. “Uncle Jaime, would you like to see my kitten? He is going to be a fierce knight and protect me like the guards.”

Jaime parted his lips to accept the invitation with a smile, but Cersei intervened. “I have important things to discuss with your uncle. He has no time for child’s fancy.”

Tommen’s face fell, and he was gone before Jaime could deny Cersei’s cold statement. She moved on toward her own chamber. He knew he was expected to follow, but part of him wanted to return to Tommen. He followed, watching the sway of her hips and the still-spreading blood blossom on the white cloth covering his forearm. A small wound, a tempting sway.

Loras and the other guard were still behind them, and they moved into formation on either side of Cersei’s door as a servant opened it and let them in.

Cersei said nothing as she moved straight to the open window. A small table rested under it, and she drank deeply of a goblet that left a red stain on her lips. He joined her, thinking how she would react if he took the goblet from her hand and finished it off. Instead, he eyed a steaming cup of something that looked like tea.

That was the last thing he’d shared with his Cersei. Tea and buttered rolls. He reached for the soothing hot liquid, but the servant ran over.

“Please, Lord Commander. That is moon tea, only for—”

Cersei backhanded the girl without a second thought, the goblet still perfectly balanced in her other hand. “I have told you not to speak to anyone else. Or would you like to serve Ilyn Payne for the rest of your days?”

Jaime gaped as the girl pressed a hand to her cheek, but she nodded and scurried away, likely to weep in silence and whatever privacy she could steal.

“It was just tea,” he muttered, still staring at her.

Her eyes scanned his face, but her expression was placid. And then it wasn’t. Her eyes changed, adopting a look that was easy and missed and wanted.

“What was it that you wanted to speak to me about?” he asked to break the sudden tension.

She stepped closer. A sweet scent wafted from her skin, enveloping him like an embrace. “I didn’t want to speak.”

 _No!_ his mind shouted at him. _You don’t want this. You don’t want_ her _._

But he did. The lust that surged through his body caught him off guard completely. He stepped closer this time, and he didn’t stop her from setting her goblet down and wrapping her hands over his shoulders. Her beautiful, velvet-soft breasts pressed against him, and he wanted her just as he always did. Her body was a drug, just as it had always been, even if this body was not the same.

He kissed her, rough and ugly. Her lips felt the same, her tongue tasted the same, of wine and honey. She would feel the same, he knew, and it was so easy as he let the pain of everything ease away as he devoured her. He ran his hand down her side to her thigh, bunching the fabric of her dress in his fist so he could creep under it, so close to her heat, so close.

She broke the kiss with a gasp, a matching lust in her eyes that made his cock even harder.

“Kill him, Jaime. Kill Tyrion for me,” she begged, her lips hovering so close, so close.

It was broken. Her spell unraveled. She wanted something, she always, always wanted something. Jaime let himself stare at her beauty, still wrapped up in desire like a fly in the web of a spider.

He didn’t draw back, wanting her heat for just a moment more though he whispered without hesitation, “I won’t.”

She peered at him with sharp emeralds, tilting her head just enough to let her hair fall to expose the skin of her neck. “You don’t care that I’m afraid, Jaime? For Tommen, our son?”

“I won’t let anything happen to Tommen. I swear it.” He leaned just a little closer, but she equally pulled back.

Then she sneered. “You already have. That same vow did nothing to save Joffrey.”

“I wasn’t here.”

“Yes, you _weren’t_. You left me alone.”

“Not this again.” He let his hand fall from her body and stepped away, shaking his head.

She adopted a sly smile and retrieved her goblet. “Do you wish me to beg?” She slid her hand down his arm, but when she reached his stump, she glanced at it in disgust and let her arm fall to her side.

He knew his eyes were sad, and he didn’t care. “You beg for nothing, dear sister.”

 _Sister_ , his mind whispered the word he’d called her. She wasn’t his Cersei. This woman was cold and manipulative, pressing against his cock just to throw him off, to make him bend to her. His Cersei didn’t do that. _Did she?_

This one, the woman whose lips were swollen from his dishonest kiss, felt _wrong_. She was _sister_. He stepped back further, out of her reach as her smile transformed into a grimace. His hand felt dirty from stroking her thigh. He wanted gasoline to rinse her taste from his mouth. He had nearly allowed himself to succumb to this imposter. _Sister_ , he chanted in his mind though he used all his willpower to make it stop. _Sister, sister, sister…_

He sucked in a deep lungful of the perfumed air surrounding her, feeling as if it were made of tendrils meant to choke him from the inside. This must be what it felt like for people who weren’t him, to lust for a sister and feel rancid and filthy.

Her glare was poison. “Have you lost more than a hand? You are changed beyond recognition, _brother_.”

He didn’t want to say anything, he wanted to run far and fast and shut his taunting mind away in a box, but that would be weakness. All he said was, “Yes.”

“Get out,” she demanded, hissing her poison at him.

He did, so quickly her door slammed against the wall as he flung it open. Something glass broke behind him. He wondered briefly if the jarring of the door had knocked something over or if Cersei had thrown a tantrum like an unruly child.

Loras Tyrell smirked. Jaime pushed him against the stone of the passage hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs, and he didn’t look back as he stalked down the passageway towards the sterile White Sword Tower. He didn’t even want to face one of the seemingly ever-present servants in his rooms, so he ducked into the meeting room where he would soon have to dole out commands and schedules to men he didn’t know or understand.

There, he paced until his blood cooled, only then spotting the massive tome on the table. The White Book, it had to be. There was no surviving copy in his time, so seeing it resting there felt like a treasure hunter uncovering something precious. He took a seat and eased the cover open. He didn’t need to treat it so cautiously though. It wasn’t fragile here.

Ser Jaime would have an entry in the book. It would be near the white linen marker wedged more than halfway through the sturdy pages. He caught his name as he found the page, but he didn’t read it, not yet. He didn’t want to think about Ser Jaime or any of the Lannisters just then. Instead, he occupied himself by matching the names of the current guardsmen to the faces he’d met and those he hadn’t. He thought the smarmy guard in the throne room must be a Kettleblack, but which one?

He waited an hour, maybe two, before he made his way to the training yard. He didn’t want Brienne to see him after his mistake. He felt ashamed and torn in two. Half of him longed for his Cersei and the solace of her. The other half felt shattered from the feeling that he’d nearly betrayed _his_ sister with another man’s sister, and the word _sister_ floating everywhere, tormenting him.

Brienne wasn’t in the yard. He was almost relieved, almost. What would she say if he told her he’d kissed Cersei, let her draw him in as she always did? Brienne would be disappointed. Probably disgusted. She might leave as she had threatened. _Please, please don’t leave me alone._

It was nightfall, and still she wasn’t there. Jaime’s stomach rumbled from hunger, but he had to see her. He needed to see her eyes as they fixed on him. Still, she wasn’t there.

He stalked out of the training yard, intent on finding her in her chambers no matter what Varys had warned against. Damn him and his bald head.

And there he was in the godswood, walking toward him. “Lord Commander! I sent men to find you and came here myself. Lady Brienne—”

“What’s happened?” Jaime nearly shouted, instantly anxious from the furrow between Varys’ non-existent brows.

“There was an…incident. She is being held in a cell until—”

Jaime was tired of prevaricating, still on edge from his encounter with Cersei and flooded with new worry. “Get to the point, fat man. Is she injured?”

Varys glanced away and started walking without waiting for Jaime to follow. “She was in a fight and has the accompanying badges to show for it, but nothing serious.”

Jaime sped up, surprised that Varys could maintain such a quick pace. “Tell me, right now.”

Varys halted momentarily, peering up at Jaime with beady brown eyes. “She left the Keep and was surprised by Tyrell men. It was bloody. One of them is dead by her hand, and Loras Tyrell demands justice.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, huge thanks to Mikki for beta-ing. 
> 
> Next up, quoth the raven, Tyrion gets a visitor, and Jaime has no fucks to give.


	14. Chapter 14

 

“Fuck,” Jaime muttered as his steps grew quicker, soon overtaking Varys entirely. The Keep’s passageways never felt longer.

Varys raised his voice, though it didn’t cloak the loud ruffling of his robe as it shifted against his knees. “I do not know why Lady Brienne was out in the city. Perhaps you do?”

Jaime allowed himself to smirk despite his worry. If Varys thought he was going to squeeze information out of him, he had another thing coming. “Tell me Varys, if you’re the Spider, what do you call your spies? Flies wouldn’t be right, would it? No, that would be for victims.”

The shuffling continued, but Varys remained silent until they had nearly arrived at the cell where Brienne was being held. “Forgive me, Lord Commander. I suffer the incurable disease of curiosity.”

Jaime halted so abruptly Varys almost ran into him, then he spun around to face the little bald Spider. “As long as you know it will kill you.”

Varys arranged his features into some mix of amusement and acknowledgment of truth.

Jaime turned to one of the two city guards on either side of the cell door. “Open the door at once.”

They didn’t hesitate. Jaime relished the power he held now, stepping into the cell without glancing back. Brienne stood in front of a window set into thick stone wall, her face in shadow, her hands folded into tense fists at her sides. The “cell” was larger than most city apartments in his time. Whether she acknowledged it or not, Brienne was still a noblewoman and was at least being given the courtesy of a comfortable prison, though she’d be out of it in a flash if he could manage it.

“What in the seven hells happened, Brienne?” he nearly growled, residual anger from their earlier disagreement in the training yard flooding his mind. She could have gotten herself seriously injured. _Or worse._

She kept her back to him, but her shoulders sagged forward as she folded into herself. “I am sorry.” Her voice was a weak whisper.

This wasn’t like her at all. He wanted her to shout at him or challenge him, not sink into some strange quiet. She turned toward him when he avoided a reply, and she seemed smaller somehow. He would laugh at the notion if her features weren’t twisted into a mask of pain and her remarkable eyes clouded.

His anger evaporated. He stepped toward her, but Varys’ shuffling sounded once more, the cell door swinging shut behind him. Jaime wanted to throw him out so he could be alone with Brienne, but his new affiliation with the bald oddity seemed too useful. He cleared his throat and tried to soften his voice.

“Brienne, this is Varys. He came to me at once when he learned of…this.” He examined her strained face, and when her eyes fixed on him, they communicated that things had been worse for her than Varys knew. “Tell me what happened. Please?”

She glanced at Varys then back at Jaime, her eyes widening on purpose. She didn’t want to explain in Varys’ presence. “I went to…I wanted to speak to people in the markets. I thought someone might have heard something of Sansa Stark….Lannister.”

So she’d found something out. “And then?”

Her long fingers twined together as she peered at the floor, her volume barely above a whisper. “I was passing a smithy. Ser Loras appeared with several Tyrell guards. He…he said things about what happened in the Stormlands. His men attacked me.”

Varys had already said one of the men had been killed. Brienne seemed so uncharacteristically shaken, so young just then, when before she’d been so competent. Surely he could have Brienne freed legally if there were witnesses to the Tyrell man’s death. Surely someone had seen the attack. A memory of Tyrion’s trial flitted across his mind. No, he’d have to rely on more than _justice_ here.

“Brienne, please, tell me how the man died so I can find someone to bear witness.” He reached out his hand and gripped her wrist.

She stared at the point of contact for a long while before her troubled gaze found its way to his. “I retreated into the smithy where there was a narrow space near the fire. One of the men followed and used his sword to fling hot coals at me.” She swallowed thickly and paused.

Jaime clenched his jaw as he noticed then the char marks on her borrowed tunic. He scanned her face again, and her hands, but there were no new marks he could see. He wanted to kill that man himself. Too bad he was already dead.

She sucked in a breath. “I disarmed him.”

“Of course you did.”

“He lunged at me. There was a brand heating in the fire.” She smiled a brief, closed-lipped smile. “It was a Lannister brand, with your sigil’s lion on it. I…the brand held him back, but he stumbled and fell into it. His face…” She turned away, grimacing as her eyes filled.

He’d seen men burn and flesh sear. Even the memory made him nauseous. He kept hold of Brienne’s wrist as he turned to Varys. “Is there a servant somewhere?”

The corner of Varys’ lip twitched. “There is always a servant somewhere, Lord Commander.”

Varys rapped on the door and stepped just outside once it was open, clapping his thick hands together twice. A girl appeared in a plain brown dress that hung on her like a potato sack.

“Yes, m’lord?” she said in such a small voice Jaime could barely hear.

“You,” he called, waiting for the girl to turn to him. “Find a Lannister guard and tell him to send his commander here. Have him bring six men with him to join the Gold Cloaks outside. Oh, and a seamstress. And a meal. Do you understand?”

“Yes, m’lord.” The girl curtsied and darted off, the door closing behind her.

Jaime waited until Varys looked at him. “Could you find out how Loras Tyrell intends to deal with this? Exactly? I want to know where he is and what he’s doing, and while you’re at it, inform him that he’s relieved from duty effective immediately.”

Varys parted his lips, almost as if he wanted to chew one to stifle a response. “Lord Commander, forgive me for this impertinence, but I have told you what is likely to occur if you continue to anger Ser Loras and allow this _distraction_ to take your attention from greater matters.”

“Yes, I remember the conversation clearly. I’ve decided to ignore it.” Jaime took a step toward Varys, Brienne’s fingers trailing down his sleeve to his hand as if trying to keep him from misstep. “I am glad to have an ally in you, but there are things I will simply not tolerate, and Loras Tyrell’s hellsbent vengeance is one of them.”

Varys gave one of his now-expected nods of acquiescence rather than agreement, but Jaime’s mind had already begun to wander. He hadn’t been sure what he actually planned to do about Loras until he’d spoken, and then it all snapped into focus with the certainty of a good tactic. He would win this nonsensical conflict.

He could feel Brienne step closer, her heat warming his back, but he focused on Varys. “Please, find Ser Loras. I have arrangements to make before morning.”

“You have recalled something useful?” Varys posed the question so vacantly, as if asking _how is the weather this afternoon?_ It was such an act as his beady eyes watched so carefully.

“I have begun to recall many useful things.” Jaime met his gaze straight-on. His _head injury_ was about due for a good healing. No more weakness or ignorance.

Varys nodded yet again and then once more at Brienne. No wonder the man’s neck was so thick. It had to support all that pandering. He floated out of the cell as the door shut behind him.

Jaime turned to Brienne whose brows were drawn together severely. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Swear it.” He heard the anger in his voice return and let it remain. He thought faster when he was angry.

“I swear, Jaime.” Her eyes told the truth, but there was such sadness in their depths.

He gripped her wrist again. “This will be over by sunset tomorrow.”

She sighed deeply and stepped back, turning to the window where she stared at the sea view with her hands folded behind her back. She kept twisting her fingers together. “He is going to pursue this further. He wants me dead and will not stop until he succeeds. I saw it in his eyes. He has sworn to kill me as I swore to kill Stannis.”

She said it so calmly, as if the idea were completely understandable. He would have to learn how Renly Baratheon inspired such loyalty in two otherwise competent people. In any case, this _Renly_ couldn’t have deserved Brienne’s devotion if someone like Loras admired him, too.

But Loras’ vendetta was not the thing that disturbed her, he could tell. “His vows are of no concern to me, and I plan on having him banished anyway. He won’t get within a missile’s distance of you.”

“I assume that’s far,” she muttered without a hint of the wry humor she always let out when he slipped.

“Very far.” He stepped next to her, not looking at her face since she seemed to want some distance. “What couldn’t you say in front of Varys?”

She waited too long. “I do not know what you mean.”

He grabbed her wrist for a third time, yanking it forward so she’d have to face him. “You sure as hells do. I saw it, Brienne. We know each other too well.”

He hadn’t expected that to be the thing that made her tears spill over. She bit her thick bottom lip as if it offended her, but it did nothing to stop the evidence of her misery. He waited.

Finally, she sucked in a ragged breath. “I did not want to kill him.”

“Of course you didn’t. Why would you?”

She flushed a deep crimson. “I…I have never killed before.”

Jaime couldn’t decide whether he was more startled by the idea of Brienne the Warrior Maid being a virgin in killing as well as the bedroom or by the clear shame she felt over it. “Why are you embarrassed? Death is never the best outcome.”

She stepped away and began to pace, scrubbing the trails of water from her face until her mask was restored. “This sorrow is a weakness. I will never be…I will never serve as a protector if I cannot kill without hesitation.”

“You should always hesitate unless its war and your life is at stake.” He didn’t know what else to say.

She halted her pacing and stared at him as if he were the naïve boy and she the wise old teacher. “It _is_ war, Jaime. Everything now is war.”

He hated that she was right. “I am still getting used to this. I’m sorry. I didn’t grow up with battle all around, just a deceptive peace that didn’t last.”

She swallowed, to buy time he thought. “What did it feel like? When you made your first kill?”

He returned her stare and knew she wouldn’t judge him for his own weakness. “Like I was the one dying inside.”

Her gaze skittered away from his. “Did you know who it was?”

“No. Just an enemy shooting at me. I was green and freshly thrown into battle. I killed twice more that day, and no, it didn’t get any better. Just easier to bury inside.”

“It was not so long ago,” she said, her eyes flashing to meet his intermittently, as if she couldn’t stand contact for more than a second.

“Five years and three months. Maybe four now. It was the day after my twenty-seventh birthday.”

“Ser Jaime was fifteen.” She said this wistfully, recalling some distant memory.

It was a comparison he didn’t want to hear. Ser Jaime was better at everything, it seemed, even killing. But he thought she needed to talk. “Tell me the tale.”

She returned her gaze to the window and sucked in a readying breath, but the door swung open to reveal new guards standing outside and a group of people. The servant girl reentered with a trail of others behind her, a girl carrying a large platter, another with a flagon of wine, a third with a bowl of bread. A Gold Cloak and a Red Cloak followed. The two men glanced hurriedly at Brienne as she spun to face them. The Gold Cloak at least had manners enough not to grimace. Jaime decided to dismiss the Red Cloak as soon as he could.

The Gold Cloak smiled then like a friend would and stepped toward him. “Ser Jaime, it is good to see you after so long. I had hoped to meet when I heard you were on your way here, but things…” The man waved his hand to encompass all that had passed in this city of strangers.

“Went mad?” Jaime finished, hoping someone would drop the man’s name before his lack of knowledge was revealed.

“Exactly.” The man’s smile grew wider and just a little cocky before he turned to Brienne, bowing slightly and covering whatever his initial reaction had been. “Lady Brienne, I am Ser Addam Marbrand, Commander of the City Watch. I was only just told of your arrest, and as I know the part you played in keeping my friend alive out in that Stark-infested wasteland, I assure you of your safety and comfort until this farce is undone.” The filtering sun made the man’s ginger hair turn to fire.

Brienne remained silent with her mouth slightly open. Jaime could almost taste her discomfort.

“Ser Addam,” he said, calling the attention away from her, “can you tell me what Ser Loras demands of you in holding her here? He has no authority to do so when his men attacked her in broad daylight. She had no choice but to defend herself.”

“That is truth, and it will be heard. Ser Loras has demanded a decision by the Hand. A supposed crime committed by a noblewoman merits that attention.” Ser Addam seemed hesitant to say this.

It was exactly what Jaime had hoped. “Then the Hand will hear him. I will see to it personally.”

Brienne glanced at him immediately but still said nothing.

Jaime fixed his attention on the offensive Red Cloak, a man who had sworn loyalty to Lannisters. “You, what’s your name?”

“Corbray, Lord Commander.”

“Well then, Corbray, lead men out into the city and find witnesses willing to speak before _my father_ that Lady Brienne killed a Tyrell man only in self-defense. Do not return until you have succeeded.”

“Yes, Lord Commander.” Corbray bowed.

Ser Addam interrupted, “I have sent my own men as well. We’ll have those witnesses by nightfall if we don’t already. There’s nothing Ser Loras can say to overcome that.”

“Good. Corbray, join the hunt regardless. I want to be certain we have testimony.” Jaime glared at the man who had the sense not to look at Brienne again before he left.

Finally, Brienne spoke, her voice rough and stuttering at first. “Ser Jaime, this does not make sense. Ser Loras is not a stupid man.”

“I beg to differ,” Jaime muttered though he knew it was probably true.

“Then what is he after?” Ser Addam asked.

“He wants me dead,” Brienne nearly whispered.

But was that it? If he craved her death so consumingly, he could simply have her poisoned or killed by a distant archer or even drugged and slain in her sleep by a servant. Tension flooded his body as he thought of it, but he forced it away. No, Loras wanted something more than a simple death. He wanted it public. He wanted justice. A quiet death would be anticlimactic.

It would be in front of the Hand then, in front of his father. Loras thought he could somehow convince Tywin Lannister to go against his own son’s wishes and sentence the woman who had kept him alive, which meant Loras thought he had something to offer grave enough to encourage such a sentence. Jaime knew what it was and hoped once more that he hadn’t slighted Varys earlier. The man was proving far too wise a council.

He would tell Brienne later, in private when she wouldn’t be embarrassed by Ser Addam’s presence. Or maybe he wouldn’t tell her at all. Her genuine shock in front of Tywin could only support their cause. Another knock sounded. Another servant entered along with Varys.

“Ser Addam.” Varys nodded.

“Lord Varys.” Addam nodded in return and promptly ignored the man, flashing Jaime a look that suggested they were meant to be very old friends indeed.

Jaime liked him and hoped he was trustworthy. The servant who had accompanied Varys set a steaming cup on the table where the food had been laid, bowing at Brienne and muttering, “M’lady.”

Addam was closest to the table and caught a whiff of the drink, immediately raising a brow and staring at Jaime in surprise.

Brienne picked it up and was about to take a sip when she wrinkled her nose. “What is this tea? I’ve not had it before.”

Both Addam and Varys peered at her in calculation. Jaime just wanted to know what the hells was going on, and thoughts of Loras poisoning her ran back with a vengeance. He stepped close.

“Is there something wrong with it? Don’t drink it.”

Varys cleared his throat. “It is moon tea, my Lady.”

Brienne set the cup on the table so quickly it spilled over and splashed the bread. “I…I do not need _that.”_ Her cheeks turned as deep a red as Jaime’d ever seen, and she fled to the window as if the tea could reach out and burn her if she didn’t distance herself.

Varys turned his stare on him. “You will thank me tomorrow, Lord Commander. Though I admit I was not certain of the result.” He bowed and withdrew too fast to allow questions.

Addam began to chuckle, but Brienne’s neck was slowly turning even redder as Jaime watched.

“Well, I had wondered when word spread of you sharing a tent, but I should have known better.” Addam continued to laugh, but attempted to quiet himself. “Forgive me, my lady. I should not have questioned your honor.”

It took several clearings of her throat for Brienne to choke out a reply. “It is…fine, Ser Addam.”

Jaime very much wished he could stop feeling like a thick-headed idiot until it was too late. He understood then, at least he thought he did. There was only one thing that could make Brienne look like a cooked lobster while simultaneously drawing mischievous smirks from men and sly nods from Spiders. The mention of her honor sealed it. Moon tea must be meant to prevent pregnancy.

 _Moon tea_. His mood soured instantly. Cersei had slapped a girl across the face for mentioning that damned tea in his presence. She hadn’t wanted him to know she drank it. Jaime wasn’t sure why his gut plummeted at the idea, because he didn’t give a whit about this Cersei, only his own. But _this_ Cersei, if she needed moon tea, had been cheating on Ser Jaime. While his namesake had been taken as a prisoner of war, beaten, had lost a hand, been dragged on and on in terrible pain, his Cersei had been cheating. _How could she do that?_ And she’d be cheating still, if _he_ was who he was meant to be in this place. If he were really Ser Jaime.

“Are you unwell, Lord Commander?” Addam asked with some concern.

Jaime snapped out of his miserable reverie, shaking his head. “No, not at all. Just…lost in thought. I have much to do, and cleaning up Loras Tyrell’s shit in the middle of my brother’s trial for supposedly murdering my king is not sitting well.”

“I imagine not.” Addam flashed a sympathetic half-smile.

His words had been flippant, but he was truly beginning to feel the weight of things as if they were his own concerns. Tyrion was not his brother, but he was family no matter how far back the blood was shared, and there was Tommen’s danger, too. Was he cursed to live now in Ser Jaime’s shoes when everyone they both cared about had a noose around their necks?

Except for Cersei. _The cheating cunt._ No, she didn’t matter. She wasn’t his. It was Brienne and Tyrion and Tommen he needed to defend now.

Yet another knock, this time allowing entrance to a woman carrying a stuffed basket. The seamstress.

“Lord Commander,” she murmured, standing quietly with both hands curled around the basket’s handle.

His mind clouded from the quick change of topic. He was just so tired. “Yes, I want clothing made for Lady Brienne. Whatever she needs in whatever form she wants. Just make what she asks.”

The woman didn’t even blink. “Yes, Lord Commander.” She went to Brienne and dropped to the floor at her feet, stretching a length of twine as she began measuring.

Brienne finally looked at him, but he just grinned and headed for the door.

“Let’s leave them, Ser Addam. And please inform me when witnesses are found and join me in the morning in the throne room. I must speak to my father.”

“Of course. I will make sure the witnesses remain safe until they are required.” Addam nodded.

Jaime hovered in the cell door, watching Addam stride away, but he spared one last glance at Brienne as she stood awkwardly with her arms outstretched, the woman swirling around her as she struggled to work around Brienne’s height.

“Make something in blue,” he called across the space before he closed the door.

To the guards, he said, “Let no one in without my permission, not Lord Varys or even a servant. I will return soon enough that it shouldn’t matter.”

He marched away in the opposite direction as Ser Addam had, hoping the mix of White and Red men would be enough to deter any action of Loras’ if he’d been wrong about the desire to make Brienne suffer publicly.

His steps slowed after a time. In reality, he had nothing to prepare, no arrangements to make. His plan was dependent on a certain element of surprise and genuine reactions from Tywin as Loras spoke. He simply needed all those servants and guards and spies always lurking about to see him in motion. He would go to the training yard and bash a dummy with a blunt blade for a while until he could return to Brienne and hopefully find her alone. He also hoped she noticed the dagger he’d left for her on the table, just in case.

He descended into the godswood, ignoring how close he was to his treacherous sister’s chamber. _Not my sister, not my lover_ , he reminded himself, though all he saw was her flowing golden hair and flashes of some other man stroking her breasts as she sipped wine.

She’d said he’d taken too long to come back. Was that it then? She’d grown bored of waiting and needed gratification that badly? His boots sank a little into the damp earth of the wood, the scent of the trees clearing his mind. It didn’t matter if she’d failed to remain faithful to Ser Jaime. It wasn’t his problem.

How long was _too_ long? Ser Jaime had been gone over a year. _He_ had been gone over five. Was that too long? Was that why his Cersei had seemed so distant? He’d thought they were just a bit awkward, trying to get to know one another again. They’d changed so much, he knew. _Was five years too long?_

All he knew was that this Cersei had no fidelity in her. She had betrayed him. Not him. _Not me._ She wasn’t an innocent.

He laughed. Brienne was torturing herself over killing a man who had tried to murder her. _That_ disturbed her. She had nearly scalded herself with the moon tea from embarrassment at the mere association. He hadn’t thought her kind of innocence still existed. Of course, it might not. This was the past. He was living in the past. He’d really have to remember that better.

He stepped off the path. It wasn’t in the direction of the training yard door, but toward the old tree that hid the older white root. The screech of a bird pulled him from his solemn thoughts. A crow, or a raven. One or the other perched on a branch just as it had last time he’d been there. Ravens were bigger, weren’t they? He could never remember the difference.

This one cocked its head at him and screeched again. Its feathers were glossy black as if it had flown through rain. It blinked once, three times.

Jaime rubbed his eyes with his fingers. He felt the heaviness of exhaustion and really needed some sleep. Maybe he could manage to stay with Brienne that night, make some excuse to the guards about preparing to speak in front of the Hand. He wasn’t on duty yet.

The idea of sleeping once more in the same room as her, with her warmth to fight off his night terrors sent a wave of peace through his body. He was tired of fighting them alone. He was even seeing things from the lack of sleep, like a third eye on the bird’s forehead.

Did birds even have foreheads? He sat on the ground near the weirwood root without realizing how he’d gotten so close. No matter, he supposed. He’d probably known in the depths of his mind that he needed to come here, just to see. Just to ask.

He didn’t hesitate this time to touch the root, snaking his hand down into the earth in the space he’d dug before. “Show me,” he demanded of the old gods, “show me Harrenhal and what happened to her there.”

The feeling of drowning was no less intense this time. His vision went dark and he couldn’t breathe or feel his arms or remember which Jaime Lannister he was meant to be.

Tall towers of an old structure sped into sight. Harrenhal at last, he thought, so eager to see what those thick walls hid and so afraid to witness the pain Brienne had known there. But he had to see…

It wasn’t Harrenhal. That place was landlocked, and the towers he now saw loomed over a rough gray sea with waves crashing against a shore. He knew that shore and that sea as he knew his own name. The towers belonged to the old Casterly Rock before it had been destroyed. _Why was he being shown this?_

A laugh rang out, golden and pure. He knew that, too, and he watched like a film as a child Cersei ran in the gardens of the Rock, and a child Jaime followed as he always had. Then it was his Cersei and himself, still children hiding from their nanny. Casterly’s gardens took over, and the two Cersei’s became the same, merging into one with golden locks trailing behind.

He stretched out his arm in longing. His right arm with a hand attached to the wrist. He almost caught the ends of her hair as she turned to smile at him, but it didn’t last. She grew up in an instant, and her smile became a familiar look of passion, and his fingers grasped her flesh as they fucked in a tower. It wasn’t the Rock, his home. Not his home. A different tower.

A face appeared in the window. A boy with wide, frightened eyes. Shuffling, scrambling, Cersei horrified.

Visions within visions made his body shake. He saw Ser Jaime, he felt what Ser Jaime felt and thought what he thought, and he knew deep in his chest that this boy would put Cersei at risk. He must protect her, always. He looked at her and saw the desperation in her eyes that matched his own. He knew what he had to do, what he _must_ do. It was disgusting. It was the most shameful thing he’d ever do, he knew it. The slain king paled in comparison. But his children…Cersei. They were at risk. What else could he do? He pushed the boy out the window and hated himself.

Jaime’s eyes popped open as he gasped in air. He hadn’t wanted that! He didn’t want to know that, and how it felt, and how he knew as certainly as Ser Jaime had known that if it were five years ago, before the war had opened his eyes to so many things, that if his Cersei had born him children who would be in danger, he would have done it, too. He knew it, and he hated himself.

Maybe that was it. He was a terrible man, and Ser Jaime had been a terrible man. Maybe they were doomed, condemned to lives of torment for their crimes. But he hadn’t done anything. He _would_ have, but he hadn’t.

 _Yes, he had,_ a voice whispered in his head. He bedded his sister. Maybe that was the curse, the root of it all. He was too exhausted to understand anything.

The moon was overhead. It had been hours, though it felt like mere minutes since he’d left Brienne’s cell. He dragged himself back, ignoring the guards as they obviously tried _not_ to look at him as he slumped and grimaced.

“If Ser Addam returns, or Corbray, let them in immediately. No one else but Varys.”

The door was barred behind him, and Brienne’s gaze met his immediately. She wore a thin shirt and breeches, and her feet were bare. He didn’t know why he noticed this, but it seemed comfortable so he kicked off his boots and peeled off his excuses for proper socks. The cold stone floor felt soothing like the cool water of the Sunset Sea.

He collapsed into a chair at the table, across from her. She poured him wine and shoved a plate of meat and some root vegetable toward him.

“Eat,” she said in a familiar tone.

He sipped the wine. “I’m tired, Brienne. I don’t want to eat.”

“That is not important.”

He burst into laughter. She looked so serious, but there was a glint in her eye, just a sliver. She would push herself past the guilt of killing and be stronger for it. He reached for the food and forced himself to choke it down.

“You have not been sleeping at all.” Her voice was quiet and concerned.

“I’m sure it’s obvious by now.”

She frowned. “You must try.”

“Can’t. Told you before.” He was even tired of trying not to be tired. If there were sleeping drugs in this place, he’d soon have to resort to them. He looked at her, willing her to understand. Willing her to ask.

She was silent for a few moments. “Can you stay?”

His shoulders relaxed. She’d had a bath. Her freckled skin was clean of dirt and sparring sweat. The ends of her hair curled a little from exposure to water. “That’s up to you.”

“People will notice.”

“They think we’re plotting. We _are_ plotting, or I am.” He chuckled to himself.

“About Ser Loras?” she pressed.

“Obviously.

“Tell me. What am I to do in this plan of yours?” She sipped her wine and sat stiffly in her chair with her legs stretched out, almost brushing his.

He smiled. “Be honest. That’s all. If I can manage it just right, Loras will condemn himself and it won’t take much effort.” He leaned forward, thinking of the one thing that could hurt them. “But I must know, Brienne. Is there anything, any reason in particular that you followed Renly so devotedly? Anything in common with Loras since you both are so…wounded, by his death?”

Brienne’s blush was magnificent, but her eyes seemed to take on a sharper gleam, perhaps of understanding. She cleared her throat. “He…he was kind. He danced with me once, years ago on Tarth when no one else would. He was just kind.”

She had loved him. Jaime hadn’t really grasped that, not really. His hand clenched into a fist. “Are you over him, Brienne?”

“What?”

“You know what I mean.”

She stared at him for a long while, her eyes troubled, but there was no lie hidden in them. “Yes.”

“Good.” He sat back in the stiff chair. “That’s what you must show tomorrow.”

They ate in silence as she kept glancing at him, making sure he had enough. Finally, when he felt as if he could barely hold his arm up to hold his goblet, he rose and stumbled toward the bed nested against a wall, too wide and too comfortable for any _cell_.

It felt like the heavens wrapped around him as he sank into it, but he didn’t let himself fall unconscious until she was there. Her big body weighed down the mattress, everything was instantly warm. But she was too stiff for sleep.

Her voice was so thin he barely heard. “On Tarth, I was trained to kill. I was made to slaughter to lambs and piglets to harden me, but I would cry every time, and Goodwin would say I was too soft for killing. I fear he was right.”

Jaime was almost too tired to care. Almost. He managed to chuckle. “That’s fucking stupid.”

He felt her turn toward him. “What?”

“It’s stupid. Killing innocent animals is never the same as killing enemies, or anything human for that matter. And I’m glad it troubled you. You’re good, Brienne, and that Goodwin is a cunt.”

She said nothing, but soon, he felt the brush of her hand next to his and he took it and wound his fingers between hers.

“It’s all right to hate the kill. You just have to do it so you don’t die.”

More silence, then, “Good night, Jaime.”

He sank into sleep before he could reply.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday week!
> 
> Always thanks to Mikki for making this all polished and shiny :-)


	15. Chapter 15

 

Jaime awoke warm and content. The air smelled a little like stale saltwater and stone dust, but there was no hint of blood-soaked dirt. No flickers of war lingering from a haunted sleep. He blinked to clear his vision, but there was only a grey ceiling, and he was confused for a moment by the body next to him. If it wasn’t war, he should be alone. It certainly wouldn’t be Cersei.

He rolled his head to the side to see. Brienne’s chest rose and fell evenly, her shirt fallen open a little to expose a sliver of skin even paler than her face. It was just as it had been on the ship from White Harbor, and even before, when she’d chased the bad things away as he slept.

Sad it didn’t work the same when he was awake. His mind had cleared enough to remember, and he knew what he would have dreamed about besides the war. The boy Ser Jaime had pushed from a tower. Cersei with a pregnant belly and golden hair flowing to her waist before it twisted itself up into pinned curls as she sneered with crimson lips.

Brienne being executed for a crime she did not commit. Her face would be ruddy and ugly, streaked with tears when she cried for help as he stood helpless, watching a greatsword descend to meet her freckled neck.

He glanced at the spot, but there was no mark on her skin. He reached out to touch it, to make sure, but he’d used his right arm by mistake. There were no fingers there to comfort him. He scrubbed his left hand over his face and sighed deeply.

Ser Addam had not returned with news of witnesses, but Jaime thought he could manage to get Brienne out of this nonsense even without them. If he were clever enough, if he said just the right things to his father. Ser Jaime’s father.

He climbed out of the bed and downed a goblet of stale water. Anything was better than his dry, bitter mouth.

“Jaime?” Her voice was thick with sleep, and soft.

He refilled the goblet and brought it to her, not quite knowing what to say. A simple _good morning_ felt trite. And he didn’t have to pretend with her.

There was little time to waste until they stood before Lord Tywin anyway. He was about to say something, but Brienne spoke first.

“Did you sleep?” Her eyes dimmed with concern.

He forced a small smile. “Yes.”

She nodded and sipped from the goblet.

“Will you swear loyalty to Tommen?” he asked without preamble.

She peered at him over the rim of the goblet as she drank, licking her thick bottom lip. She hesitated as long as she could, whispering, “He is not the rightful king, Jaime.”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “Obviously, but who is?”

Her jaw clenched. “Stannis Baratheon.”

He perched on the edge of the bed, willing her to see how muddled the world really was. “But you supported Renly’s claim, though he wasn’t next in line. Why did you think that was right?”

She paled and her eyes widened. She looked confused. Finally, “He would have been a great king.”

“And Stannis wouldn’t?”

“No.”

“Why not?” he pressed.

“He does not fight for the will of the people. He does not care for them, only for his Red God and his own claim.” Her voice was deep and sure.

“And what did Renly care for?”

She swallowed and stared down into the goblet. “People.”

“By that logic, you’re willing to support someone who is not the rightful claimant as long as they’re a better option. Is that true?” Jaime tried to sound kind, not as if he were condemning her for irrationality.

She looked up at him before her eyes skittered away, clearly distressed. “I…I do not know.”

“I thought not. But I don’t think you’re required to be a politician, Brienne. Tell me though, who are the options right now? Stannis and Tommen.” He left out the Dragon Queen on purpose. He didn’t know how long it would be before she crossed the Narrow Sea. The timeline was too vague in the histories, and Ser Jaime wouldn’t have known how serious that threat would be.

“And the Targaryen girl. I’ve heard rumors, though no one wishes to speak of her.” Brienne’s voice was barely above a whisper, and she clutched the water goblet so hard the tendons in her hands stood out. She peered at him with new surprise. “You know who keeps the throne.”

Did he? That would be true if nothing changed, and he changed nothing. But there was no guarantee of that. He might have altered the future already. It was too big a thing to contemplate, so he shrugged. “All I know is that I won’t allow some pathetic boy to condemn you. It doesn’t matter what might be, it only matters that you choose who you support with great care. If Tommen has no right to power, would you stand for Stannis?”

“No.” Her eyes blazed a darker blue as she stared straight at him. “I will kill Stannis for what he did.”

“You’d assassinate the _rightful_ ruler for killing a would-be usurper?” He had to keep pushing, just as Lord Tywin would.

She looked angry, her brows drawing together. “Why do you ask me these things?”

He leaned slightly closer, all earnestness and concern. “Because they will be asked by others who will care about your answers far more than I do. You can’t appear to be a traitor, Brienne.” He looked away, out the narrow window that gave a glimpse of grey sky.

There was nothing but silence for a long while. Jaime pulled his wretched socks back on, then the stiff boots. He tidied himself and stood.

“All right,” she muttered, not looking at him. “I will not lie, but I will not condemn myself.”

“See that you don’t.” He spoke gruffly, but just as he reached for the door, he glanced back and winked. As he left, he didn’t have to look back again to know she blushed.

Outside, the guards nodded respectfully, and one cleared his throat.

“Ser Jaime, Ser Addam sent word that he has found witnesses and waits with them until he is summoned by the Hand. He apologizes for not returning himself.” The man nodded again and returned to his stiff stance.

“Very good. Do not leave this post, no matter who demands it, and do not let anyone in. I would consider it a…personal favor, a debt. Do you understand?” He glanced at all of the men, Lannister and otherwise.

Their quick nods and wide eyes confirmed their loyalty. No Tyrell power was strong enough to overcome a Lannister debt. He grinned to himself as he walked quickly down the passage, this time with a purpose.

The entrance to the Hand’s Tower was no less cold than the last time. Jaime paused in front of one of the guards. “Is my father inside?”

“Yes, Lord Commander.”

Jaime didn’t bother to acknowledge the man’s reply before climbing the many steps. Tywin was occupied with paper and ink as he sat behind a table. He didn’t look up. Jaime was struck with a sudden memory of his own father. Loren Lannister had been a stranger until the day of his death, but Jaime clearly recalled the single occasion he’d visited Loren in his office in the glossy building in Lannisport. Loren had worn the same expression as Tywin, fierce, impatient, pejorative.

If this were Jaime’s time, Tywin would be sitting behind an enormous desk made of rare imported wood, with brass handles on the drawers and a blotter made of some equally rare hide. He’d wear an immaculate grey suit and a silk tie, and cufflinks with lion’s heads on them. He’d have a cigar in a crystal tray by his elbow, unlit, and a full decanter of brandy by the other.

“Is there something you wish to say, or will you continue to peer vacantly at my face?” Tywin’s right brow rose just enough to imply more.

Jaime cleared his throat and immediately hated that himself for it. “It’s about Loras Tyrell.”

Tywin sat back, watching. Observing. Studying. “He came to me, but I assume you already know that.”

“Clearly.” Jaime tried to imitate Tywin’s careful, dismissive tone. “That _boy_ is under my command yet has no respect for the position _or_ his king. It’s of grave concern.”

“Explain precisely why it is of grave concern to _me_.” The placidity in Tywin’s face was more unnerving than his disdain. It was the exact tone Loren Lannister had used when Jaime had gone to that glossy office, begging not to be sent to boarding school. He’d been sent.

“Well, _Father_ , Loras Tyrell has demanded an audience to seek justice for an imagined crime. This is petty, not worth your attention as Hand to the King, or so it would usually be. Not this time.”

“Do not bait me, Jaime. I am fully aware of the boy’s claim and his lack of evidence. This seems to pertain to that beast of a woman you insist on harboring, and while she is also no concern of mine, she will become so if my attention must be drawn to her existence so frequently.” Tywin leaned on his elbows on the table. This was when he would puff on the cigar, if it were there.

Jaime refused to be cowed. Not by a man who was _not_ his father. “Who did Loras serve before he arrived here in the company of the sweet Lady Margaery?”

Tywin’s brows drew together. “His…error, in serving that treasonous stag was forgiven upon his sister’s betrothal to Joffrey.”

“Forgiven perhaps, but forgiveness doesn’t ensure his loyalty to Tommen.”

“And the _Lady_ Brienne was also in service to Renly. You will gain no ground in the comparison.” Tywin picked up his quill, preparing to dismiss.

“As I have assured so many times already, Lady Brienne is loyal to our cause. Loras Tyrell is loyal to the memory of a dead traitor. Lady Brienne has already been ransomed once. What do you think her father will do when he hears of yet another imprisonment? He will support Stannis as King all because of a slight against his daughter.

“Tarth is an old house, Father. Those in the Stormlands who supported Renly and stood against Stannis may just listen to the old Evenstar if he allies with the crown.” Jaime waited until Tywin deigned to meet his gaze. “It is in Tommen’s best interests to handle this problem. Loras has already been suspended from the Kingsguard. Short of charging him myself, there is little else I can do to…stifle him. Do you see, Father?”

_Please see…please understand what you have to do, you old fussbudget._

Tywin leaned back. His left brow rose. His lips compressed into a tight, relentless line. “Hmm.” That was all he said, but it was enough.

“I will attend Tyrion’s trial today. When will you hear Ser Loras? That is, if you have the time.” Jaime waited.

Tywin’s tone was unnervingly casual. “It is the last day. I am anticipating a request for combat.”

Jaime felt offended for Tyrion, however much a stranger Ser Jaime’s brother was. “He will be found guilty then.”

“You know that. Do not delude yourself.”

“Of course not, Father. Lannisters are never deluded.” Jaime peered straight at Tywin, not bothering to veil the insult at all.

The old man’s glare made him feel nothing. “If Loras Tyrell is not what you claim he is, you will be thought weak and an ineffective leader of the King’s personal guard. I will not defend you.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to, Father. Wouldn’t dream of it.” Jaime smirked and turned to leave before he was subjected to further insult. Not that it mattered.

“Have the boy and your Lady Brienne brought before the throne. We will end this new farce before witnessing the last of your brother’s.”

* * *

 

Jaime stood tall in his armor, his sword strapped over his right hip. He gripped the pommel with his palm as Brienne had shown him, and it made him feel stronger. He heard the enormous doors open. He only looked at Loras Tyrell standing not far away as they faced the throne.

The boy knew Jaime stared. He knew, but he wouldn’t turn his head or tear his gaze from some vacant spot behind the throne. Jaime smiled. He hoped Loras would feel it burning his skin.

Tywin occupied the chair of swords, loftily perched above everyone else as his green eyes judged them. To the right, Cersei draped herself in her queen’s seat. Jaime didn’t know why she’d bothered to make an appearance, but she seemed almost amused as she purposely avoided meeting his eyes. Perhaps that was enough motivation for her. Amusement.

At the bottom of the royal dais stood Margaery and Olenna Tyrell. He’d never seen them before, but their identities were obvious. Margaery and Loras shared too many features to be taken for anything other than siblings, and by all accounts, there was only one stodgy harridan in the Keep. Olenna Tyrell appeared as calculating as Tywin. She seemed to be playing games in her mind as they waited, picturing them all as pawns to be moved around. Just as Jaime was trying to do. If Olenna were his opponent, he might not feel so confident.

He finally let himself glance back when Addam brought Brienne to stand before Lord Tywin, two Lannister guards coming to a halt behind them, and several City Watch gathered around a group of three men dressed in laborer’s clothes. The witnesses.

He caught Loras’ sneering at Brienne. Good. It would only hurt him in the end.

Tywin had been frowning the entire time, and he didn’t stop even as he spoke. “Might we begin?”

“Of course, Lord Hand.” Jaime nodded his head slowly, almost  a bow, and then he turned to keep Loras and Brienne both in sight. “I can’t wait.”

Loras was still too absorbed in his idiotic scheme to realize the danger in Jaime’s tone. _A child throwing a tantrum_ , Jaime thought.

“Lord Hand,” Loras began. “This… _woman_ has murdered one of my own men, in public without shame. She has slighted my House and my name, yet no justice would be brought against her if I had not insisted on the honor of my position.” Loras waved his hands dramatically, underlining every word with misguided fervor. “She is guilty and clearly expects her association with the _Kingslayer_ to—”

“Might I remind you, Ser Loras, that you speak of my son.” Tywin sounded almost amused, but Jaime knew that was the furthest thing from truth.

Loras opened his mouth, but quickly shut it when Olenna Tyrell shook her head so subtly it was nearly invisible. But Jaime caught it. He watched them all.

Loras cleared his throat, the anger in his eyes burning like a bonfire. “She is guilty of this murder as well as countless other crimes against the King and his people. She has no honor, no loyalty or duty. She serves king after king, Lord Hand. She manipulates…people, into trusting her, only to betray them.”

 _There it is._ This was what Jaime had hoped for and what would set Brienne free.

Jaime looked at Tywin, willing him to understand what he’d meant in their earlier conversation. There was a light in Tywin’s green eyes, faint but growing stronger as his boredom faded in favor of the game.

“What proof do you have of this murder?” Tywin’s gaze was steel, but Loras was too dim to feel the edge.

Jaime glanced at the old Tyrell woman. She wasn’t too dim. She caught his eye in a silent exchange of _I know what you’re doing_ , but Jaime glanced away. He wouldn’t let her believe he had any doubt about the outcome of this _meeting_.

“The word of my trusted men, Lord Hand. And my own eyes. I saw the dead man, brought back with a brand in his skull. It was a cowardly weapon. A woman’s weapon.” Loras glared at Brienne, his eyes raking over her body in clear disgust.

She stood there with hands clasped together in front of her. She wore that hideous yellow dress again, and it did nothing to make her more appealing. Jaime almost wanted to fling joking insults about the unfortunate color again, but instead, he felt sorry for her. He could see the awkwardness in her posture and the set of her lips. She didn’t look at Loras or at anyone, and she didn’t show the anger Jaime knew was roiling inside.

Tywin frowned deeper. “Is this the only _evidence_ you bring to me? Do you fail to understand the consequences of a man of the Kingsguard insisting upon recompense for a personal slight he cannot sufficiently prove? Your dead man is of no concern to this realm.”

Jaime wanted to grin, but he stopped himself. Tywin understood how this would play out, was setting the pieces on the board in just the right way for Jaime to win. Loras smiled.

“No, Lord Hand. It is not the only evidence, though perhaps the murder of my man is a small injustice compared to the Lady’s other crimes.” He sank into silence, waiting and waiting.

Jaime fixed his gaze on Loras’ profile. The insipid boy would play his hand now, just as Jaime had expected.

It was Cersei who gave in. Jaime wanted to banish her from the room for it. Lions weren’t manipulated by the thorns of roses. 

“And what other evidence do you bring, Ser Loras?” Her voice was honeyed and calm, with a hint of benevolent smile at the corner of her lips.

She wanted this, he realized. She wanted Brienne to be guilty. He’d laugh at her jealousy, for that was the truth even if she denied it and even if it were absurd.

Loras sighed deeply, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. His acting was terrible if he were trying to convey dismay at whatever his revelation might be.

“Lord Hand, the weight of my words is heavy, and I speak them only for my King, for his safety and the welfare of the Seven Kingdoms.” He lifted his gaze to Tywin. “This Lady has betrayed many, but her worst offense is the corruption of the Lord Commander.”

The appropriate gasps of shock echoed between the columns, the expected fury washed over Tywin’s face, but Jaime could only stare. Yes, he’d anticipated this accusation, but the reality of the reactions around him made him question his plan. Varys had been right about everything. He’d been so dismissive of the Egg’s claims, but they had been spot on.

Brienne had certainly done nothing to sully the white cloak. It was Cersei who had no regard for it, and Ser Jaime. The truth wouldn’t matter though, not if it was believed that he had made Brienne his mistress. He had to prevent that at all costs or neither of their lives would be worth anything. Just as Varys had warned.

So he laughed. It was loud and rollicking, and he kept laughing until he sensed that the tension had broken, if only a little. Just enough. It had to be enough. But before he could forcefully deny Loras’ claim and insist on its ridiculousness, Varys’ weedy voice filtered in.

The man’s round, slippered feet carried him before the throne. “Lord Hand, if I may…”

“Lord Varys.” Tywin waved his hand, but his gaze was fixed on Jaime.

“I myself can attest that Ser Loras’ charge is false.” Varys paused to make sure attention was firmly on him. He would probably like that even if he only shared what he’d eaten for breakfast.

“What?” Loras glared at Varys in obvious shock.

The _boy_ had not expected this. After all, why would anyone defend the Kingslayer, a man with no shred of honor?

Varys ignored him. “You see, I have…observed, shall we say? Lady Brienne has kept to her chamber each night since she arrived in King’s Landing. She has remained alone—”

Loras interrupted despite another of Olenna’s sharp shakes. “She has _not_! Only last night, the Lord Commander was with her. _All_ night. It was seen. And she shared his tent on their journey here.”

That certainly could not be denied, but anything could be twisted. “Am I not allowed to defend myself against this absurd claim?” He stared at Tywin.

“Speak then,” Tywin snapped.

There was a part of Tywin that believed Loras. Jaime could see it, though he was surprised. He took a deep breath, making sure every word he’d carefully constructed to defend this accusation could be heard. “I not only admit to sharing my tent with the Lady Brienne, but in case any other foul rumors descend upon my head, I also admit to sharing a cabin with her on the ship from White Harbor and many a night in the forest as she fought to keep me alive.

“There is no shame in that. It was born of necessity. I was ill and incapable of ensuring my own survival. She stayed with me to make sure I didn’t die in the night, and when I got better, to feed me and keep me from being killed by some passing Stark loyalist. There was only one cabin on the ship. Was I to sleep on deck? A Lannister and Lord Commander of the Kingsguard reduced to oiled planks for a pillow? Was I to force a noble Lady to do the same? I am no Dothraki.

“And the tent…yes, the tent. You see, there was simply nowhere else for her to stay, and I would not leave her alone.” He paused to make certain all eyes were on him, hoping his exaggeration would pass. “I recall no less than three times when the Lady Brienne was nearly raped. This is war, and men at war will fuck a log if that’s all there is. Was I meant to allow a noblewoman to whom I owe my life ten times over to stay alone and exposed?”

Before Loras or anyone else could respond, Varys stepped in again. “The Lord Commander’s word is clearly enough to dispel such a slight against House Lannister, but I have yet one more assurance to offer. After hearing of Ser Loras’ intent to bring the Lady Brienne before you, I arranged a sort of…test. Of course, I had no doubts myself after observing the lady’s solitude, but I expected such a test may be necessary, though I am saddened to be right.”

Jaime wanted to roll his eyes, but he was still eager to hear how Varys would explain his _test_ if it meant more help for Brienne.

Varys went on, “I brought Moon Tea to the lady’s cell last night.”

Jaime’s gaze snapped to meet Cersei’s. This was not the time, not the place, but he stared at her for a few seconds while Varys spoke. He could afford that to see her reaction. She knew he’d figured it out. Her eyes were sharp and defiant. Unapologetic, though there was just a hint of wariness. _Did she care that he knew? Did she care at all that she’d betrayed Ser Jaime who would have been devastated if he’d found out?_ He would have to play that part, too. He thought it would hurt quite a lot.

Varys had rushed ahead. “I was there myself, and not only did she refuse it, she did not recognize its particular perfume. She was utterly guileless in the matter and was quite embarrassed when she was told. What is the phrase? Yes, she blushed like a maid.”

“She _is_ a maid,” Jaime said loudly and insistently, still staring at Cersei until he tore his gaze away from her sullied beauty to Brienne’s crimson blush. “Her honor is unbesmirched, you little Tyrell bastard. Have a maester examine her if you’re fool enough to doubt.”

He thought this last suggestion was clever, but Brienne flinched and dug her fingers into her palms. He’d think the mortification of the subject must be too much for her, but there was something else behind her downcast eyes. Was she not a virgin after all? Had she been assaulted before he’d known her? The idea made him nauseated and furious. This was something he’d have to find out no matter what.

Tywin sat straighter in the throne. “There you have it, Ser Loras. Your claim has been proven false, and quickly at that.”

Loras looked as if he were about to murder everyone in the room, stepping forward with clenched fists and as ferocious a glare as his effeminate features could manage. “She has still killed my guard!”

It had come full circle, and Jaime had one more chance to end this. He wouldn’t fail Brienne.

“Tell me, Ser Loras,” he drawled, stepping closer to the boy. “Why was Lady Brienne given the opportunity to kill your man at all?”

Loras scowled. “She attacked them outside the Keep.”

“Really? I had thought they attacked her. You see, I find it hard to believe that a lone noblewoman out for a bit of air would creep up to a group of, what? Three? Four Tyrell guardsmen, all armed? And attack them with only a tiny brand?” Jaime rose to his full height and loomed over Loras.

The boy stammered, but tried to recover with another scowl. “She is a traitor.”

There it was, for the second time. Jaime let himself smile. “To whom, Ser Loras?”

The boy went pale. He finally understood.

Before there were more weak objections, Jaime took over. He glanced at Brienne, willing her to remember her role.

“Who is the king, Lady Brienne?” he asked calmly and matter-of-factly.

“King Tommen Baratheon, Lord Commander.” She didn’t hesitate, and her voice was steady.

“And why does Ser Loras hold such contempt for your honor?” Jaime hated saying those words about the one person who had any real honor at all.

She swallowed thickly. “I believe it is because I have been accused of killing Renly Baratheon.”

“Did you?” Jaime pressed on before anyone else could.

“No.” She was adamant, her eyes clear and truthful. “No.”

Jaime spun back to face Tywin, ignoring Loras completely, though he had to raise his voice to prevent the boy from interrupting. “Lord Hand, the Lady Brienne indeed killed a Tyrell guard, but it was only self-defense.” He gestured behind him to where the witnesses stood. “I have here three honorable men who observed that Lady Brienne was attacked by Ser Loras’ men, _in public, without shame_ , as he himself claimed.

“The true purpose of this farce is to seek revenge against the Lady for killing Renly Baratheon. It’s no matter that she is innocent of it. If she were guilty, King Tommen should honor her for removing a threat to his throne, a traitor. Ser Loras accuses her of shifting loyalty, but where did he himself serve before his current position? With Renly Baratheon, the traitor.

“His loyalty rests with a dead man and a dead cause, and he has gone to great lengths to pursue his revenge. How is King Tommen to trust him with his life as a member of the Kingsguard? How am I to command such a disloyal, petty man who wastes the Lord Hand’s time with personal vendettas that border on treason?” Jaime fell silent then, and waited. He stared at Tywin, then Loras, then everyone else in turn.

Cersei was no longer amused. Margaery Tyrell looked terrified, clinging to her grandmother’s arm. Olenna was unreadable. She looked at no one and everyone and gave nothing away. Brienne was sad. He could see it, though he wasn’t sure why.

“Lady Margaery?” Tywin’s booming voice made the poor girl jump.

“Ye…yes, Lord Hand?”

“Are you loyal to King Tommen, girl?”

“Yes, Lord Hand.”

“Do you believe your brother is…misguided in his claims?” Tywin peered at the girl, and then at her grandmother. Loras’ face paled. There would be no joy in the Tyrell quarters this day.

Olenna squeezed Margaery’s arm. Just once.

“He is misguided, Lord Hand.” Margery’s voice shook, and she didn’t meet Tywin’s gaze.

“And are you loyal to your brother?” The final nail.

Loras understood. He knew what was going to happen, and he’d given up all pretense of bravery. His hands shook as he stared at his sister, his eyes pleading. “Margaery, please,” he whispered. “Please.”

Margaery jerked her head to look at Olenna, tears forming in her eyes as desperation colored her cheeks red. Olenna squeezed her arm, harder.

The tears fell. “No, Lord Hand.”

“You bitch!” Loras shouted at Margaery. “Traitorous bitch!

Margaery crumpled to the floor, her hands over her eyes and her grandmother stood sternly, unrepentant for her granddaughter’s sacrifice.

Addam stepped forward with several other gold cloaks to restrain Loras. Tywin looked satisfied.

Loras struggled against the arms that held him. “She is not a maid!” he shouted. “She’s a fucking whore for whichever king will have her.”

“She was examined, boy.” Tywin’s roar silenced them all. “And she will be examined once more. I will have no more of this, and there will be no further complaint from House Tyrell or House Tyrell will no longer be welcome here.”

Olenna was made of stone. Jaime would pay to know what was ticking behind her eyes, the schemes she was laying. He could only hope they weren’t against him.

Tywin stood on the steps of the throne. “Loras Tyrell, you are no longer a member of the Kingsguard. Your titles and honors are stripped from you. You will hold no lands in the Seven Kingdoms. You are to return to Highgarden and remain there for the rest of your life, and if you are seen outside of the Reach, you will be condemned to death. You will leave immediately with half the Tyrell guard in King’s Landing.”

This gone had much farther than Jaime had anticipated. Tywin had just castrated any Tyrell influence and garnered nothing but ill will from a powerful family. He didn’t suppose it mattered much, when you were a Lannister and Hand to the King. There was gold enough to buy even the Tyrell army for the right price.

Loras had gone quiet, but he was no longer pale and enraged. Jaime knew resolution when he saw it.

“Ser Addam,” Tywin commanded. “Attend Ser Loras as he removes his possessions from the White Tower and send fifty guards to escort his host to the border.”

“Of course, Lord Hand.” Addam bowed and signaled his men to lead Loras away.

The boy did not fight them. He barely acknowledged them. He smiled at Brienne before he was gone. Olenna dragged a weeping Margaery out as well.

But Jaime dwelled on that smile. It was a chilling smile. He wondered if there would ever be a time he could stop worrying in this place, but that was foolish dream worthy only of a child.

Tywin continued. “Lady Brienne of Tarth…”

Jaime smiled to himself. He thought Tywin would proclaim her innocence and send her on her way, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy. His smile fell.

“Do you pledge loyalty to House Baratheon and to King Tommen?” Tywin’s gaze pierced the space between the throne and the giant beast of a woman who did not cower in his presence. It was odd phrasing, Jaime thought. It meant something.

She stared straight at Tywin. “No, Lord Hand.”

Another wave of gasps circulated. Jaime’s chest clenched and he spun on his heel to peer at her, angry and worried.

“You proclaim yourself disloyal then?” Tywin’s tone was almost amused. Almost.

“No, Lord Hand. I cannot pledge loyalty to House Baratheon when Stannis Baratheon remains part of that House.” She did not falter or hesitate.

“You name Stannis Baratheon as a traitor?” Tywin descended several steps. The lower position somehow made him seem more powerful.

The muscles in Brienne’s neck tensed. He saw them, and he watched as she stopped herself from looking at him. He could tell that she wanted to, and he knew this was about their morning conversation. He was as anxious to hear her response as Tywin, and probably more so.

She swallowed but showed no other sign of uncertainty. “He is a traitor.”

Jaime nearly choked on his relief.

“And do you pledge loyalty to King Tommen as the one, true king?” Tywin was relentless.

“I pledge loyalty to King Tommen and no other who claims the throne.” Her blue eyes shone in the light filtering through the tall windows. They were free of cunning, the eyes of a young girl in an ugly yellow dress.

Only he would understand her words and what they meant. Only he would know that she would feel bound by this oath until she died. Oh, they’d all say it without question, but no one would mean it like she did.

A traitor who had killed a man she’d loved, a distant girl who would one day soon become the real threat to the throne, a bastard boy governed by the will of others…she’d chosen her ruler as best she could. Her other oath, to Lady Catelyn, depended on this new one. She couldn’t search for the Stark girls if she got herself locked up for treason. That was it. It wouldn’t be about him at all, their friendship. He knew that.

“We are done here,” Tywin proclaimed, descending the remaining steps and vanishing into the Small Council chamber without a glance back.

Cersei stared at Brienne who stared at the polished floor. She refused to fix her gaze on him as she too glided away.

Varys stepped forward. “I apologize for the tea, my Lady, but I felt it a necessary ruse.”

Brienne blushed. “I understand, and I thank you.”

“I as well. You have been…invaluable, Varys.” Jaime was strangely reluctant to admit this. He still didn’t trust Varys entirely, no matter how helpful he’d been.

Varys bobbed his head. “Whisper to the walls if you require my assistance again. I will hear.”

It was a flippant thing, said in amusement, but Jaime heard the truth in it. There was no privacy here, even though he was alone with Brienne in the front of the vast throne room after Varys followed after Tywin.

Alone apart from dozens of guards and random servants and Cersei’s lingering handmaiden who stood next to a pillar flirting with a City Watchman.

He turned to Brienne. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. She didn’t look at him or turn to go.

“No you’re not. I can see it,” he almost accused.

She swallowed thickly. “I thank you for what you did. I would not know how to defend myself.”

He chuckled. “You did a fine job against Tywin. Clever words with that pledge.”

“I did not want to give it,” she whispered so quietly he could barely hear. Walls with ears, they both understood.

“I know. But I would not see you banished or imprisoned. I’m glad you did it.”

She was so easy to read when her guard was down, almost as if the color and pattern of her blush were newsreels of her moods. She was sad. She was lost in memory. She was self-conscious and miserable.

“What are you thinking of?” He wanted to know so badly, all these pieces of her pain appearing randomly, yet he could not fit them together.

She whispered again. “Harrenhal.”

That damned place. He wanted to burn it down himself for keeping her secrets locked away. His hand clenched into a fist, but he made it relax. He wasn’t angry at her. She didn’t deserve that.

He sighed deeply. “I am sorry I’m not him, Brienne.”

She was silent for a time. “It is very easy to forget you aren’t.”

He didn’t know if that was good or bad, but she seemed to relax a bit, so he was grateful. Tyrion’s trial would begin much too soon, no time to process the shit Loras had hurled until more was flung toward his brother. But he had to be there, and he didn’t want to leave her in such a mood.

“I might have a few minutes to spar, if you want. Celebrate victory.”

“I would like that. But not in this dress.”

“Of course not. It’s terrible, wench.” He winked even though she wasn’t facing him.

Until she was, the first time she’d really looked since she’d been brought in by Addam. “Do not call me that.”

Her voice was a growl and her lips twisted down in a dreadful scowl. He grinned his cockiest grin.

And she smiled. She tried to fight it, her facing scrunching in the effort, but she lost, and she smiled. It lit up her eyes. The muscles in his chest stopped clenching from lingering anxiety.

“Told you I’d make you smile. Wench.”

“Shut up.” She smacked him on the arm.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! 
> 
> Next up, Tyrion's conviction, Cersei has a surprise, and Brienne finally gets something decent to wear.


	16. Chapter 16

 

Jaime stood in a corner, as he had done every day of Tyrion’s trial. This time was different. This time, Tywin’s stony gaze was its own army daring rebellion, his steepled fingers soldiers waiting to declare victory. This time, there was a whore who’d so clearly betrayed Tyrion that Jaime didn’t understand how her false tears and artfully-sloped shoulders could convince anyone.

But a whore’s job was to make men believe her lies. She finished her tale of woe, all downcast eyes and quivering lips. Tyrion, at first, looked stricken, then resigned, then enraged as if he’d turn into a bomb about to explode.

His words chilled Jaime more than any winter wind. There would be no mercy now, and the acid and bitterness in Tyrion’s soul seeped out with every word.

“I was born. I lived. I am guilty of being a dwarf, I confess it. And no matter how many times my good father forgave me, I have persisted in my infamy.”

All the elation of Jaime’s success in freeing Brienne washed away. He should have helped Tyrion. It would have been Ser Jaime’s responsibility, now his. It wasn’t until that moment that Jaime really understood he was supposed to be a brother. He didn’t know what that meant in his own life, since his only sibling was Cersei, and Cersei was his lover.

Tyrion didn’t get a sentence. He got a battle.

“I demand trial by combat!”

The room was silent, and then there were gasps of shock and bouts of laughter. In no realm would someone like Tyrion win single combat. He would know that, so he would expect a champion to fight for him. Jaime knew enough about this time to be sure of it.

It would be him. Jaime’s chest clenched as he understood this. _Does Tyrion know about my hand_? Only if someone had told him. If he didn’t know, he’d expect Jaime to be the champion. Or hope. One or the other. Brienne had told him about Tyrion, so long ago now, or so it seemed. Ser Jaime had loved his brother more than anyone besides Cersei. He would have been his brother's champion, if not for the hand.

There was no way Jaime could win now any more than Ser Jaime. Cersei would know that. Was that why she smiled so slyly, down at her own brother, the Imp? Her gaze flickered up to him, there in the shadows of the back. Just for a moment. She was quite amused.

Jaime felt sick. It was a stone in his gut, weighing him into the ground. He spun on his heel and strode from the room just as the Gold Cloaks grabbed Tyrion to take him away.

The air outside was cold, the endless passages of the Keep like a maze trying to trap him. He had to do something, had to _try_. Maybe he could practice enough to put up a good fight. His steps quickened as he thought of Brienne. She could do it, if Jaime could convince Tyrion to choose her somehow. She could fight.

The thought soured. Jaime would have to find out who the King’s champion would be. _Cersei's champion, or Tywin’s._ Tommen had no part in this. If the champion were someone Brienne could beat without risk of severe injury, it might be a good plan. But if not…no, he couldn’t ask her to risk herself like that. He couldn’t abide the idea of watching her fight so violently, when her victory would mean survival for herself and for Tyrion, and her loss would be death for them both. Those odds were unacceptable.

He’d have to find someone else, and he still had Sansa Stark to trace. It had taken him a while to realize the other implication of that whore’s appearance, but now that he had, Brienne needed to know.

There were no guards outside her door. Another unacceptable thing after what had happened. She answered his insistent knock almost immediately.

He was furious. “You didn’t even ask who it was!”

“I knew it was you.” She stepped back into her rooms, unconcerned.

“You didn’t _know_.” He followed her and shut the door.

“Only you would be offended by a closed door. I knew.”

Jaime huffed and started to pace. She waited silently, patiently, but the expression in her eyes told him that he wouldn’t have to say how things had gone. She read his face too easily.

“What now?” she asked after letting him pace for a time.

“He needs a champion.”

Her brows rose. “He requested combat?”

Jaime nodded, his lips twisting in a disbelieving smile. “There’s more, too.”

She waited in silence.

Jaime sighed. “A…woman, was there to testify to Tyrion’s guilt. I _know_ she was lying, but she was one of Sansa Stark’s maids. And she was with Tyrion.”

Brienne looked almost elated. “Then there is someone to question. This woman might know where Lady Sansa went.”

“Or Tyrion might know where Lady Sansa went.” Jaime let out a huff of frustration. “He might have been protecting this woman until she betrayed him. Someone has to know something, Brienne, but if she testified _against_ my brother, she’s now in the…employ of Tywin or Cersei. Probably. I don’t know.” He ran his fingers through his hair. It had grown twice as long as army regulation allowed.

“Then we find the woman and we speak to your brother.” Her voice grew soft and hesitant. “He will likely wish to see you.”

“He’s going to know, Brienne. He’ll _see_.” Jaime peered intently at her troubled face, knowing she would she would understand his fear. She was the only one who could. “I’m not his brother.”

Her thick lips pressed together for a moment as she thought. “You _are_ his brother. You must be. His brother is dead, and there is no one left who loves him.”

Jaime could see how hard it was for her to say that. The stiffer she held herself, the more twisted her grimace, the more she struggled inside. She’d scare off a battalion with that face if she didn’t learn to smile.

“I’m not…I’m not ready,” he mumbled, not quite knowing why the idea of seeing Tyrion face to face gave him such dread.

Maybe it felt like a nail in a coffin, like once he accepted Tyrion as his brother, there would be no going back to his former life. And no, he still felt no pressing desire to return _home_ , but that wasn’t the point. He didn’t get the point, he just felt dread.

“Then I will go.” She sounded resolute.

“What?”

She took another step closer. It was better that way, when she couldn’t turn her face away, when he could look into her eyes.

“Someone must speak to him, tonight, in case that woman steals away. We must find her and hear from him. If you wish to avoid him, then I will see him and you will find the woman.”

“He won’t confide in you. Why would he?” Jaime scoffed.

She huffed in irritation. “I have to try. This is the only thing that can be done. Is your post with the King tonight?”

Jaime shook his head. “Morning. There’s time.”

She nodded. “All right then. Find the woman.”

The urgency written all her over face started to infect him. He had shifted focus so many times that day that his head was beginning to swim, pitting his father and his sister and the Tyrells and Brienne all against each other, and now his brother, and the Stark girl…it was too much.

“I’ll find her,” he said. It was a thing to do. One thing to do.

“Ser Addam has guarded Lord Tyrion. I think perhaps he will help me see him.” This was almost a question, so much uncertainty coloring Brienne’s tone.

“I’ll send for him. He’ll help if I tell him to.” He strode back toward the door despite lacking any desire to leave. He hesitated and glanced back to her.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes rolling.

“What?”

“You can come back. Now go.”

He would have smiled if not for the persistent weight in his chest.

 

* * *

There was no sign, no word of the treacherous whore to be found. Shae, she was called. The name felt like mud in his mouth he’d spoken it so many times, questioning City Watchmen, Lannister guards, stable hands. _Everyone._ No one remembered the girl beyond the trial. No one knew the name.

Jaime was sick of lies. Of course someone knew, and they probably knew exactly where Shae was cowering, but whoever had paid her to lie and was her keeper wouldn’t be so careless as to let her strut about the Keep. But Brienne had been right. The longer Shae went unfound, the less likely she would be found at all. _Just like Sansa Stark._ It was ridiculous.

Why was he pursuing this futile task, again? Oh yes, the dead Ser Jaime had made a vow, and Brienne had made a vow, and _he_ had made a vow to fulfill Brienne’s vow, and the dead man’s vow, in exchange for help in returning home. Yes, that was it. _Stupid._

He didn’t even need help. There was no guarantee that finding the Red Woman would even allow him to return home, but it was the best chance he had, and he could take it at any moment. He wondered, truly, why he wasn’t on a ship sailing up the coast.

It wasn’t honor. He didn’t pretend to have enough to make him keep his promise to Brienne if he really wanted to go home. Nothing would stop him if he really wanted to go home. He let himself acknowledge that, but it was no less confusing. The dream of home had kept him alive for five years of combat, so why wasn’t it enough now?

 _It isn’t home, that’s why._ He cut down these thoughts clouding his mind as if they were enemy soldiers. Thinking only caused pain.

He went to Brienne to tell her he’d failed in his search.. At least the guards he’d ordered were at their posts on either side of her door. _Just like the cell_ , he thought. This time, keeping others out instead of keeping her in. Was there anywhere in this godsforsaken kingdom where a person could just be safe?

She sat at her table with Ser Addam, who at least looked slightly less prone to insulting her now. He seemed almost friendly.

“Did you find her?” Brienne asked immediately, before Jaime even had the chance to wash the dust from his mouth with wine.

He hated his failure. “She’s vanished. The invisible woman.”

“What?” It was Addam this time. Maybe Brienne was used to his slips by now.

“Never mind.”

“I saw Lord Tyrion.” Brienne watched him, waited for him to sit.

So he sat and drank and watched as Ser Addam’s gaze passed between them with a hint of a smile at the corner of his lip. Jaime wanted to slug him.

“And?”

“He…he does wish to see you. But he was willing to speak to me. I told him that I needed to find Sansa Stark.” She took a breath. Her eyes looked bright and clear of shadows for once. “He could tell what I chose not to say. That I want to protect Sansa. He told me he does not know what happened to her once he lost sight of her at the wedding, and he does not know where she went or if she was taken.”

“Then why are you excited?”

“I am not excited, Jaime.”

“Yes, you are.”

She grimaced at him. “He told me about the woman. Shae.”

“So you found out she was a whore.” Jaime grinned.

“It would have been nice had _you_ told me. Lord Tyrion laughed when he saw that I realized.”

“We are brothers, as you yourself said.” His grin widened. “We’ve got to have a spot of fun now and again.”

She rushed on with grimace intact, though her eyes didn’t reflect it. “She stayed out in the city. Lord Tyrion…kept her there. He does not believe she would still be there, but there is a chance someone might have seen her.”

Jaime focused and grew serious. “You know where the place is?”

She nodded, and Ser Addam took over. “When I returned inside Lord Tyrion’s cell to retrieve Lady Brienne, she asked your brother to tell me the location. I know it well, as would you. I placed trusted men outside your brother’s cell, and I will help you as much I can, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime trusted Ser Addam. He hoped that was not misplaced, but he simply didn’t have the energy to be suspicious of every soul he encountered.

“Why, Ser Addam? Don’t you find our requests odd at all?” Jaime peered at the man with his fiery red hair glinting from the late afternoon sun.

Addam sighed. “I do not care what is or isn’t odd. A King died, and another before him. Every house is ready to slaughter every other. If the Stark girl is returned to the North, and King Tommen is kept alive, and Stannis Baratheon shuts himself away with that red whore, we may have a chance for peace. I can do nothing about Stannis, but I will do all I can for the others.”

There was something left out, Jaime could tell. “And?”

Addam chuckled. “And you are my old friend, and she is yours. Maybe I’m tired of strangers, with Tyrells everywhere and upstarts buying or fucking their way up the ranks.” He glanced at Brienne with a slightly red cheek. “Apologies, my Lady.”

Brienne didn’t reply, barely reacted at all, but Jaime met her gaze in silent communication. He willed his question to float over the table to her. _Can we trust him?_

She didn’t nod or tilt her head or lower her eyelids in a long blink, but the blue of her eyes brightened somehow as if to say, _Surely someone in this place isn’t plotting our failure. And he was Ser Jaime’s friend…_

He would trust Addam, who wore an odd expression of amusement as Jaime turned back to him.

Brienne rose from her chair. “We were waiting for you. We must find the woman’s dwelling.”

Jaime and Addam followed her lead, though Jaime quickly remembered that he’d still have to maintain the appearance of knowing the city, of navigating this world. Brienne buckled her sword belt over her borrowed clothing. Jaime’d have to send more money to that seamstress so she’d bloody hurry up.

They were an odd group, their steps rapid and purposeful as they rushed down passages and stairwells. The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard in a white cloak with a muddy hem. The head of the Gold Cloaks with a loyalty to lions. And a woman a knight truer than both men despite holding no title. 

They crossed the Keep, and for the first time since he’d arrived in King’s Landing, the foul air of over-population and its accompanying poor hygiene assaulted his nostrils. It burst like a firework over the gates.

“I’ve ordered horses,” Addam said offhandedly.

“Delightful scent,” Jaime muttered.

“This has been a long summer,” Addam replied.

Brienne remained silent, though Jaime could read her face. _It will be winter soon enough_. She was looking at the sky towards the North. He wondered if she were imaging the expanse between her and the Stark girls. He knew by then there was no chance they were anywhere close.

Behind them, there was noise of construction and men shouting. Several towers of the Keep were cocooned in tremulous scaffolding, just planks of wood bound together by rope as men precariously repaired loose stone.

Addam saw where Jaime looked. “One of Stannis Baratheon’s gifts after the battle.”

“He only destroys.” Brienne’s voice was almost a whisper.

Jaime watched as two men on the scaffold hoisted a large stone in a rope net. He didn’t want to be anywhere nearby if that stone fell. He imagined the sound would be loud, an incredible thud of shattered earth. _Like a bomb._

Jaime stepped back into the shadows of the wall. There was a straw awning, too. He wished he could rip his white cloak away and be invisible, but even then there were eyes on him, eyes watching his movements to find his weaknesses. He leaned against the wall.

A louder shout, a man on the scaffold dropping one of the ropes. The stone slipped and swung, side to side like a pendulum, and the man clutched his fists to his chest. _Friction burn._ That happened a lot, especially in Essos when it was so hot your own sweat would make your rifle burn your hands. One of his men had been burned like that. Jaime had found a well and a bucket, and even though the water was tainted with blood from dead men thrown in the dark hole, it was cool water, and his man needed it.

“Ser Jaime?” Addam had peered at him with clear concern.

“Yes, yes, just…watching.” He shook his head, nervously avoiding Addam’s gaze…and Brienne’s.

She was near, just feet away. But he’d slept. There was no excuse for this, for the slips into memory in broad daylight as if he’d just returned home from the war.

“Where are those horses?” Jaime barked, not even sorry for it.

The clack of hooves on packed earth answered his question. He fixed his gaze on the glossy coats of the beasts, their gentle faces, their dust-cloud breaths. The one in the middle had great brown eyes like the dead men in the well.

A snap sounded, a recoil. A horse reared back. The stone fell as Jaime had known it would, but it wasn’t a stone, it was a bomb. He’d known it was a bomb and the bomb was falling and would hit any second. Shards of people would stain the earth. They would all die. The sound was loud.

He spun so quickly his armor scraped against the wall and sparked. He barreled into Brienne, knocking her to the ground back to front and covering her big body with his. She kicked at him, but it didn’t matter. They’d both burn in just a second from a great fiery ball like dragon’s breath. He didn’t want her to die. _Not her. Not Brienne._

He clutched her as best he could with one hand. There was a weight on his back like a hand. Shrapnel, or the dead. Her voice flooded his mind but he couldn’t understand any of the words. He was sweating and didn’t want to die.

His head snapped back as he was grabbed from behind. She took advantage. She elbowed him and flipped them over until her face obscured his vision as the sky seeped around her. This wouldn’t work, on his back. She’d take the brunt.

She held his hand down by the wrist, and the other above the stump. Any second now.

“Bomb, it’s a bomb,” he mumbled without hearing anything but the roar of blood rushing through his ears. Trying to tell her. Trying to save her.

She stilled. He could flip her back over, but he couldn’t feel his arms anymore. He could barely breathe. She stood and he wanted to scream at her. She hauled him up somehow, he didn’t know how, and then they were in a dark, moldy place and the door was barred. Maybe the bomb would stay outside.

His back hit a cold wall, and she was there in front of him gripping him by the shoulders and staring.

“There is no bomb, Jaime,” she whispered over and over. _No bomb, no bomb…_

“What in the seven hells is a bomb?” a voice burst from somewhere.

“No bomb,” he repeated, and the feeling started creeping back down his arms like venom in his veins. His hand started shaking.

Brienne placed her warm palms on his cheeks. “It was a stone. It fell and frightened the horses. You saw it. There is no bomb.”

He choked in stuttering breaths. He braced himself against the wall and leaned his cheek into her hand because she was warm and she wasn’t dead.

“There is no bomb,” he repeated.

She shook her head. Her lovely eyes were darkened in the light, and filmy. She was upset.

He tried to raise his hand, but it was shaking so badly. She dropped one of hers from his face and took it, and the shaking began to lessen. No bomb. No bits of flesh to pick off his clothes. No blood to wash from his skin.

“I…I’m sorry,” he muttered thickly around a tongue that wasn’t quite cooperating.

“No, Jaime.” She just shook her head. He didn’t know why. 

He could breathe again. That voice before, it was Addam. He didn’t know about the war and the bombs. He could never know. Jaime stared at Brienne in some desperate attempt at telling her this. She had to explain…

She nodded and spoke without taking her gaze from Jaime. “Ser Addam, you will not speak of this. Ser Jaime was extremely ill. He suffered injuries. He was tortured. Sometimes, he does not understand where he is. No one can know.”

Addam’s voice pierced the painful tension, and it was sad voice. “I understand. Of course I do.”

“Thank you,” Brienne spoke for him.

He stood a little taller against the wall. Brienne dropped her hands and let him be, and then he was suddenly so angry. At the war and the things that had been done to him, at the other war and the things that had been done to Ser Jaime, and to _her_. Angry at Tywin and his own father, and at Cersei, and at _Cersei_. At Tyrion. At the dead king.

Mostly at himself. He was weak and pathetic. No, people must not know of his night terrors and his waking dreams. He was pitiable. The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard could not be pitiable. Captain Jaime Lannister of the 31st Infantry Division could not be pitiable.

He shoved Brienne aside and wrenched open the door to whatever hellshole they’d hidden him in, hidden his weakness. He stalked across the dirt and veered past the fallen stone as its dust clung to his slick skin.

Back and back through the passages, and then he was in the godswood. He didn’t know why. He ignored its call and went into the training yard that was so secret and so safe. Except for Varys and for _her_. There was nowhere for him to hide all alone. And she would follow. He would be found.

He paced in front of the rack of blunted swords, back and forth, back and forth as his hand clenched so tightly his nails bit bloody crescents into his palm. _So much rage today_ , he thought. _So much pain_.

It was absurd to be so angry with oneself. There was no one to take it out on, but it was there, boiling inside him all the same. He had been strong his entire life, reckless even. He had been brave in war. He had saved countless lives, and he had been repaid with a new and feeble mind subject to the whim of terror.

“Jaime?” Brienne’s voice was a mere whisper across the dank space.

He ignored her. He didn’t want to. He wanted to admit to being a pathetic, weak, useless idiot, and he wanted to yell at her and punish her for bearing witness to that weakness. How dare she see it…how dare she see this truth he fought every day to keep buried in that ironbound box in his head.

“Jaime.” It was a demand this time. _Stop it, look at me._

“What?” he snarled.

Silence for far too long. Two or three seconds even.

“Ser Addam has gone for the woman.” Her voice was distant.

One of the blunted swords landed at his feet, almost causing him to stumble. He halted. When he glanced up, she stood ready with her own sword pointed at his chest as she balanced the blade on her left forearm. There was no pity in her brilliant blue eyes. No condemnation. Just challenge.

Yes, that was what he wanted. A weapon in his hand as his muscles tensed in action. You couldn’t be a coward when you had a weapon. He picked up the sword and tested its weight, not bothering to pretend that it felt familiar or even welcome. But it was what he had, and he wanted to fight.

He took a second to balance and then recklessly thrust at her. She parried easily without even blinking, her stare so fixed on his face that he didn’t know how she moved without tripping. He hefted the blade up, hoping to catch her steel from underneath, but again she blocked him, stepping forward fluidly to swat him on the thigh.

Thrust, parry, heft, block, it was like this for some time until they grew sweaty and frustrated. He could gain no ground or even touch her with his blade, while she could disarm him and have him on his back in a second, but refused to do so. His frustration was not abating.

He growled and took a fast step toward her, reveling in the nearly imperceptible shift in her gaze as she was surprised. She blocked him, but their swords locked at the hilts. He felt like a bull snorting puffs of dusty hot air as he pushed against her. He could beat her this way, not with the blade but with muscle. She would know he was stronger, finally.

But they pushed in the middle of room, neither gaining ground, neither giving in. He felt her suck in a deep breath in preparation, and he was ready when she tried to use her foot to yank his legs out from under him. Instead it was a strange dance as he sidestepped the attempt, shifting to the side to shove his shoulder into her. She dodged it. They were too well matched for any victory, it seemed. This made him angry, too.

He abruptly stepped back and dropped the sword, its metal clang echoing behind him as he strode to the pitcher of water on the table.

“What are you doing?” She sounded furious.

“Walking away from a pointless undertaking.” He dipped his fingers into the water and wiped his face.

“You do _not_ give up.” She stated this as fact, still sounding angry about it.

He spun to face her, shoulders tense and her blade grazed the stone floor. “I’m no swordsman!” he shouted, bitter at the reminder. “I’m never going to beat you at this.”

“That is what you want then? To beat me?” she goaded.

“Obviously.”

“No it isn’t. You want a fight. So fight.” She lifted her sword.

His blood was high, speeding through his veins and demanding some release. Fine then, he’d fight. He stalked toward her, draining a goblet of water and throwing it to the floor.

“Fight me,” he demanded, assuming a boxer’s stance despite the hideous stump pretending to be a hand.

Her glare turned into confusion, her brow furrowing. “What?”

“Drop the sword. I’m teaching you to fight.”

“I know how to fight.” She gripped the sword harder and sneered.

“Without the sword?” He felt smug in his anger. She knew nothing about dirty fighting.

She paled, her freckles standing out like constellations in the dim light. “Yes.”

Then he remembered. The brand, the attack. He dropped his arms and stood still and silent. The anger clouding him turned to worry and then into a different kind of rage. She could have been killed that day, without her sword.

“You need to be better.” It was harsh and cutting, but he knew his gaze was soft. He couldn’t help that.

She stared at him a moment. “So do you.” Her gaze flickered to his dropped sword.

Every muscle tensed as he lunged at her, grabbing the hilt of her sword even as she gripped it, and wrapping his right arm under her left so his forearm could attempt to press her closer by the waist. She hadn’t been ready. She’d expected him to pick up the sword.

“What…what are you doing?” she grunted as he worked at wrenching the sword from her grasp, fighting back as she directed her strength, her chest almost flush with his.

“Being your enemy.” He twisted his left arm and sidestepped, forcing her blade from between them until it felt loosen in her grasp. His blood sang as he thought he was gaining the upper hand.

Her breath warmed his face as she stuttered words between angry breaths. “I would…never…let an enemy…so close.”

“What of Vargo Hoat?” He met her gaze, watching her eyes darken. He hadn’t forgotten. But she didn’t know that he’d learned of it.

Her head tilted as she stared, confused then furious. “That’s not fair.” She looked pained, but she used it to push him back.

His left shoulder was wrenched, but he maintained his grip, using her own force as leverage to twist her arm. The sword fell. She tried to retrieve it, as he knew she would, and the movement allowed him to wind his arm with hers until he could spin her around and pin it behind her back, between their heated bodies. His useless stump pressed as hard as it could against her stomach to force her still. He couldn’t see her face anymore. He breathed the hot air of anger into her shoulder.

“Is that how he got close, wench? Distracting you with words?” He growled, feeling violent and unsatisfied, angry at everything.

“Only you do that.” She tried to kick him, but he was too close.

He forced them forward until she was caught between the table and his body, the wooden ledge cutting into her thighs. He tightened his right arm until it compressed her rib cage.

“Then tell me,” he demanded.

“No.” She writhed against him, trying to get away as the muscles of her back pressed against his chest.

“Tell me, Brienne!” His anger only made him stronger.

She snarled and struggled, grunting out snide remarks and accusations. But his mind was too flooded now to hear her. It was like war, the rage. Everything heightened, everything painful, and all he wanted was to fuck.

That’s how it had been, since he’d returned. The anger and the memories only went away when he’d fucked Cersei, and only then for mere minutes. It was an escape. It was what he needed.

The wench’s right arm jerked free from his grasp and shot back to grab him. Her fingers landed in his hair, tugging painfully. He’d already been hard, and now his cock strained impatiently. He pulled her back harder as her big body wrestled against him, his eyes closing for a moment. What would she do, he wondered, if he let her arm drop and snaked his fingers over her skin? If he slid them up, under her sweat-damp tunic?

She would hit him. He’d deserve it. It was absurd that he grew harder at the idea, and he rested his head on her shoulder to gain some clarity. He was going insane. It was the pain, the mortification of his episode.

She smelled of salt and soap. She must have had a bath to wash her incarceration away. Her arm easily jerked from his grip and fell to her side. She had so much skin that would show above the water of bath, all freckled and ghostly pale. He breathed heavily. He was exhausted. He wanted her.

Her fingers loosened in his hair, but they remained. He wasn’t even trying to prove his strength anymore. She had long fingers, he thought. Incongruously delicate. She twisted her neck a little, to glance at his head where it fallen against her.

“Jaime?” It was the softest whisper.

He didn’t know if she was aware that her fingers flexed in his hair. _Stop touching me. Don’t stop touching me._

“Jaime?” Louder this time.

His head snapped up. There were her astonishing blue eyes, wide and questioning and free of the accusations he knew he deserved. He let go of her as though she were made of burning coal. She didn’t know he’d thought of fucking her. She’d be disgusted as he was disgusted with himself.

He turned and stalked away without glancing back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All thanks to Mikkie for fixing this up real pretty. I mean, it had to clear that B's butt was all up in Jaime's business, right? Oh, blocking. 
> 
> Next up, finally more Tommen, Jaime is given gifts, and proof I didn't forget about Jaime's bag of modernity.


End file.
